The Arizona man accused of targeting exotic dancers in gunpoint robberies and brutally killing one of the victims years later repeatedly reversed his decision on plea deals in the robbery cases, including one that would have reduced the charges to a low-level felony with little prison time, court documents show.
In 2021, Cudjoe Young, 29, turned down an agreement to plead guilty to disorderly conduct and serve 2½ years in prison followed by probation, according to a joint pretrial statement obtained by NBC News.
Weeks later, Young reversed himself and told prosecutors he wanted the deal, according to the statement. He ultimately rejected the offer during a court hearing.
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Young faces a maximum prison sentence of 36 years combined in connection with charges of armed robbery in October 2020 and attempted armed robbery the following month, according to the statement.
The statement does not indicate what prompted the reversals.
Young, once described by his lawyers as an aspiring professional football player, also stands accused with two co-defendants in a horrific murder plot that targeted one of the robbery victims, Mercedes Vega.
Vega was found beaten, burned and shot in an abandoned car on an interstate outside Phoenix on April 17, 2023, less than two years after Young rejected the plea.
Young has pleaded not guilty in both cases, which are ongoing. A co-defendant in the murder case, Sencere Hayes, has pleaded not guilty. A third defendant in that case, Jared Gray, has not been arraigned.
Authorities have not identified a motive in the killing, but Vega’s family has said they believe it was to silence her. Vega, 22, had been scheduled to appear at a court hearing in the armed robbery case on the day she was found dead, according to her mother, Erika Pillsbury.
Vega’s parents have said she might still be alive had the robbery cases not been repeatedly delayed and had she been better protected while she waited to testify.
A spokesperson for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office declined to comment. In a motion filed last week, the deputy county attorney prosecuting the robberies pointed to a recent effort by Young to change attorneys in those cases and accused him of “a calculated effort to manipulate the court into postponing his trial.”
“It has been almost five years since the crimes alleged in this case and justice has been continually denied,” the prosecutor wrote.
Aaron Reed, a lawyer for Young, declined to comment, noting that the pleas were offered before he became Young’s attorney. Reed also would not comment on the delays, but in a filing he called the prosecutor’s allegations “off base and false.”
The pretrial statement shows that Young rejected three plea offers from August 2021 to last December. On Jan. 27, 2022, roughly a month after he rejected the disorderly conduct plea, he reversed himself and said he wanted the deal, according to the statement.
“With an agreement reached we asked [the judge] to fit us in for a change of plea after lunch,” the statement says, noting that all parties arrived at the hearing after the break.
“Defendant again rejected the plea,” the statement says.
Another proposed agreement would have reduced the charges to attempted armed robbery with a maximum prison sentence of 3½ years. Young initially indicated he would accept the offer, according to the statement, but needed time to get his affairs in order.
He later rejected the plea during a court hearing, the document says.
Prosecutors’ final offer came on Dec. 18, 2024, nearly two years after Vega’s death: In exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of aggravated assault, he would serve 7½ years in prison, according to the statement.
“No settlement was held because Defendant didn’t believe it would be fruitful,” the document says.
Trial in the two robbery cases was scheduled for last month, but the proceedings were delayed after Young asked for his lawyer to be removed. He initially planned to represent himself, the former lawyer said, though he appeared at his arraignment for murder charges last Friday with Reed, a private attorney who is representing him on the murder and robbery cases.
Court documents, police reports and interviews show that three dancers who worked at Le Girls, a Phoenix strip club, told authorities that a masked gunman robbed them or tried to rob them after they finished working late shifts from November 2019 to November 2020.
Young was charged in two of the cases, including Vega’s. No suspect was identified in the third case.
Vega’s family has said that after she was robbed, she left her Phoenix apartment building for what she believed was a more secure home in nearby Tempe. Authorities have said she was violently abducted from the parking garage of the new building on the night of April 16, 2023.
Vega was found hours later in the back of a Chevrolet Malibu on Interstate 10 near Tonopah, roughly an hour west of Phoenix, after a motorist reported seeing a burning car.
A medical examiner’s report listed Vega’s cause of death as conflagration, blunt force and ballistic injuries. The report noted the smell of bleach in her throat.
A probable cause statement in the case alleges that after the Malibu was bought through an online seller, Young paid two people to pick it up. Authorities have also suggested that he may have bought his co-defendants’ plane tickets to Arizona from Tennessee, where he is originally from.
Authorities have said fingerprints found in the Malibu and in Vega’s car link his co-defendants to the murder.
