Woman accused in Coachella armed robbery pleads not guilty
A woman who allegedly robbed a Coachella cell phone store at gunpoint then triggered an injury crash during a police pursuit, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to robbery, kidnapping and evading arrest.
The charges against Mary Helen Delara, 29, of Coachella, stem from the March 7 armed robbery of a Metro PCS store at 52669 Harrison St. and subsequent crash in Thermal that seriously injured the defendant and two other men in the car.
Delara was hospitalized at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs until last Friday, when sheriff’s deputies took her into custody at the hospital and booked her into the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside in lieu of $1 million bail, according to county jail records.
Delara is accused of entering the Metro PCS store around noon wearing a black ski mask and brandishing a handgun. She allegedly escaped with about $500 in cash, along with a cell phone from one of the store clerks, according to an arrest warrant declaration.
Delara allegedly made her getaway in a minivan driven by Deana Romero, 48, of Thermal, who has also been charged with robbery in connection with the case. She is out of custody on $30,000 bail and is slated to be arraigned next month.
Delara was later spotted around 1:45 p.m. in a different vehicle, a gold Mazda driven by a man, the declaration states. Delara was lying in the backseat, according to the declaration, while two men sat up front.
The Mazda driver sped off after deputies attempted to stop the car, triggering a pursuit that ended when he lost control of the sedan while headed westbound on Airport Boulevard in Thermal. The car went onto the right shoulder, then veered back onto Airport Boulevard, where it broadsided a pickup truck in the eastbound lanes, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Mike Radford.
The declaration states that during the chase, “a CHP aviation unit and several deputies observed the female occupant take control of the vehicle, and the driver of the vehicle attempting to fight her off.”
Delara and the two men were hospitalized, while the pickup driver was uninjured.
Romero, who allegedly received about $160 for her part in the robbery, told investigators that she dropped Delara off at an acquaintance’s home just after the robbery, according to a separate arrest warrant declaration.
Both women were charged by prosecutors last week.
Delara, who is charged with robbing the store and its clerks, as well as kidnapping the two men in the Mazda, pleaded not guilty to all counts and is scheduled to return to court April 16 for a felony settlement conference.
She was also arraigned on several other outstanding warrants, including an unspecified robbery case, an identity theft case in which she’s accused of trying to cash stolen checks, and a misdemeanor battery and vandalism case in which she’s accused of beating a woman at the Coachella Valley Cemetery, then breaking the victim’s car window.
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