Federal prosecutors say a Honduran national who admitted to a string of armed robberies in Central Texas has been hit with a 31-year federal prison sentence in Austin. The guilty plea and stiff punishment cap off a multi-jurisdictional case that tied together violent convenience store holdups and a robbery at a San Marcos vape and smoke shop.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas publicly announced the sentence in a post on X, describing the conviction as part of the Department of Justice's Operation Take Back America and tagging law enforcement partners, including the FBI's San Antonio office, the Austin Police Department, and the Houston Police Department. The post used the hashtag #OperationTakeBackAmerica and credited federal agents and local officers for their work. U.S. Attorney WDTX
Details Of The Case And Plea
According to a Justice Department press release, the defendant, identified in court documents as Christian Lopez-Burgos, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery and several firearms offenses, including discharging a firearm and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Prosecutors said the plea carried a statutory mandatory minimum of 20 years. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Keith Henneke, Thomas Parnham, and Gabriel Cohen. U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas
Timeline Of Robberies And Arrest
Local reporting and court filings indicate the robbery spree started on Dec. 31, 2023, with an attempted fast-food robbery near I-35, followed shortly by a stickup on North Lamar Boulevard that brought in roughly $6,000. Additional robberies on Jan. 23 and Feb. 3, 2024, included another North Lamar convenience store, where three shots were fired after an alarm was triggered. Investigators say Lopez-Burgos was arrested on Feb. 15, 2024, during a traffic stop in Houston, where officers recovered clothing and stolen items that linked him to the series of robberies. Fox 7 Austin
Sentence, Penalties And Context
A federal judge handed down the 31-year sentence on Monday, a term prosecutors say reflects the mandatory minimums triggered by the firearms counts, which by law must run consecutively to the robbery convictions. In the federal system, sentences generally do not involve parole, so long terms are typically served nearly in full, subject only to limited good-conduct credits. The Department of Justice has framed this prosecution as part of a broader federal push under Operation Take Back America. See U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas; for background on determinate federal sentencing, see Congress.gov.
