An Oakland man who held up seven gas stations and a Taco Bell at gunpoint across the East Bay has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Jaray Washington, 44, was sentenced for eight counts of robbery affecting interstate commerce and one count of felon in possession of a firearm, and he will also serve three years of supervised release and pay restitution.
The sentence, handed down Friday, closes out a case that prosecutors say involved a string of armed robberies across Alameda County in 2024, according to The Mercury News. The U.S. Attorney's Office said Washington robbed eight Alameda County businesses at gunpoint, a run that included seven gas stations and one Taco Bell restaurant. A co-defendant, 27-year-old Deante Hunt, received a 36-month sentence for participating in two of the robberies alongside Washington.
A Distinctive Purple Pistol Tied the Robberies Together
Investigators said the robberies stretched across Hayward, Livermore, San Leandro, Castro Valley and Fremont, according to earlier reporting by The Mercury News. Authorities alleged Washington used the same “distinctive purple pistol” in each of the eight robbery charges he faced, and that the weapon was later found in his mother's Oakland home. Separately, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that officers recovered a loaded Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol from Washington's home that prosecutors said was used in the robberies.
One of the robberies detailed by the Chronicle took place on Jan. 31, 2024, when Washington and Hunt hit a Castro Valley gas station together. The pair fled with about $1,500 in cash and 10 cartons of cigarettes, the paper reported. Washington, 44, and Hunt, 27, pleaded guilty in December to the charges against them, with Washington admitting to eight armed robberies and to being a felon in possession of a firearm, per the Chronicle's account.
Police Had Linked Washington to Even More Robberies
Before federal charges narrowed the case to eight counts, East Bay police had connected Washington to a wider pattern of stickups. KRON4 reported that the suspects were connected to at least 11 robberies over an eight-month period in Hayward, Livermore, Fremont, San Leandro and Castro Valley — three more than the eight counts that ultimately led to Washington's federal sentence. The dossier does not spell out how investigators narrowed that broader total down to the eight charges that were eventually prosecuted.
The case adds to a string of federal robbery prosecutions out of Oakland and the surrounding East Bay. In a separate case, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that nine associates of Oakland's Ghost Town gang were sentenced to a combined total of nearly 60 years in prison for a series of armed robberies in 2022, underscoring how aggressively federal prosecutors have pursued armed robbery crews operating in the region. Residents looking for broader context on local crime patterns can check the City of Oakland's weekly, quarterly and annual crime-incident data, which the Oakland Police Department publishes citywide and by police area.
With sentencing now complete, Washington faces a decade in federal custody followed by three years of supervised release, while Hunt's role in two of the robberies earned him a three-year term. Neither the amount of restitution Washington must pay nor further details of his supervised release terms were specified in the available reporting.
