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Vincent Chan-Guillen, 32, had just been paroled from state prison after serving three years for drug and weapons convictions when the holdups began in August 2018.
He committed nine altogether over the next three months, four of them at liquor stores in New Jersey and five others at establishments in New York, the U.S. District Court jury in Newark found on Wednesday, March 8, following a week-long trial.
Chan-Guillen partnered in some robberies with at least one of two other men -- among them, Jaime Fontanez, 45, of Elizabeth, who took a guilty plea last December.
Chan-Guillen brandished a .45-caliber handgun during liquor store holdups in Elizabeth, Woodbridge, Bloomfield and Linden, the jurors found.
He also wore the same sneakers and black jacket in several of the jobs, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger noted.
Chan-Guillen and a partner had their faces covered when they robbed a liquor store in Elizabeth on Nov. 4, 2018, store security video shows.
In the video, Chan-Guillen points a gun at an employee while his cohort goes to the cash register and makes the worker open it, according to an FBI complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark.
The robber snatches $4,000 in cash and three cell phones before fleeing with Chan-Guillen, the complaint says.
Chan-Guillen again was armed during a Nov. 13, 2018 holdup of a liquor store in Woodbridge from which he and an accomplice fled with $800, FBI Special Agent Michael R. Lovett wrote in the complaint. They then went to a liquor store in Bloomfield, Lovett said.
Things there didn't go according to plan, however.
After pushing an employee aside, the robbers were unable to open the register. The victims were chasing after them, Lovett said, when Chan-Guillen fired a shot that lodged in an ice freezer.
Both men were whisked away in a waiting Honda Civic that came back registered to Fontanez, the agent reported.
The holdup of a liquor store in Linden on Nov. 27, 2018 went a lot smoother, with Chan-Guillen pointing a handgun at two employees while his associate removed $5,000 in cash from three registers, according to the complaint.
Once again, they fled in Fontanez's Civic, it says.
Chan-Guillen's luck ran out on Nov. 30, 2018.
He seemed to have an answer for everything when Lyndhurst Police Officer Joseph White approached him in the Wacoal America parking lot on Polito Avenue that day for not having a front license plate on the Nissan Maxima that he was driving.
What he couldn't explain was why he had a loaded handgun in his trunk, detectives told Daily Voice at the time.
SEE: Story-Telling Ex-Con Just Released From Prison Has No Defense For Loaded Gun
As it turned out, Chan-Guillen wasn't only driving with a suspended license, Detective Lt. Vincent Auteri said: He was a recent parolee already wanted for skipping traffic court in Elizabeth.
After a computer check of the license plate came up empty, Chan-Guillen “claimed to have borrowed the vehicle from his cousin and indicated that the correct plates were probably somewhere in the car,” Auteri said.
It turned out Chad-Guillen had bought the car from a Union County woman for $1,000 in cash with no paperwork involved.
Chan-Guillen refused to open the trunk for a search, the lieutenant said. He was taken into custody, the vehicle was towed and his parole officer was called.
Chan-Guillen consented to a search once they reached headquarters. Inside the trunk police found the Charles Daly .45-caliber handgun, Auteri said.
Turns out it was the same weapon that had been fired at the liquor store in Bloomfield and was used in the other holdups, as well, according to the FBI complaint.
Also in the trunk was the same black hooded jacket with a distinctive decal on the breast that Chan-Guillen had worn in some of the robberies, it says.
Chan-Guillen was initially charged with weapons offenses, including being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, and was sent to the Bergen County Jail.
He wouldn't taste freedom again -- and won't for a very long time.
Chan-Guillen had the opportunity to cut a deal with the government after a grand jury returned a multi-count indictment against him in August 2020. He opted for the trial instead.
Jurors convicted him on Wednesday of three counts of Hobbs Act robbery, one count of attempted Hobbs Act robbery, conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, conspiracy to use and carry a firearm during a Hobbs Act robbery, three counts of brandishing a firearm during a Hobbs Act robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, said Sellinger, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
The 1946 Hobbs Act makes it a federal crime to commit robbery (or attempt to do so) in a way that affects interstate commerce. It's a powerful tool wielded by U.S. attorneys, and their assistants, against violent criminals.
Chan-Guillen faces a seven-year minimum federal prison sentence for multiple Hobbs Act convictions, but here's the thing:
Even if U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler gives him the minimum for each, the terms must be served consecutively and not concurrently.
Not only that: Whatever Chan-Guillen gets, he'll have to serve just about all of it because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
A sentencing date wasn't immediately announced.
Sellinger credited FBI special agents with the investigation leading to the convictions, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Desiree Grace, who's deputy Chief of his Criminal Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Mezzanotte of the Organized Crime/Gangs Unit in Newark.
The U.S. attorney also credited police from Lyndhurst, Elizabeth, Rahway, Woodbridge, Bloomfield, Linden, Kenilworth and Union, as well as New Jersey State Police, the NYPD and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' New York Division.
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