Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...OAKLAND — A Bay Area woman has completed a diversion program, allowing her to avoid jail and a criminal conviction for her role in a robbery crew that prosecutors say targeted “Asian females.”
Sene Malepeai, 29, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2024, with the expectation of receiving two years in federal prison. But instead she spent the next two years completing a diversion program that required her to apologize and pay restitution, and to find ways to make amends by bettering herself with education and job training, court records show.
She was ordered to pay $3,290.26 in restitution, records show.
Now, Malepeai looks back at her guilty plea as day one of “a new chapter” in her life, a defense sentencing memo says.
“Someone who had been helpless so much of her life was required by the terms of her plea agreement, and more importantly, motivated by the desire to live a better life where she was in control, to take charge, secure housing, childcare, and a job in order to spare herself from imprisonment,” Malepeai’s lawyer, Kathryn Ross, wrote in court filings.
Malepeai, her co-defendant Freddie Lee Davis III, and two others who avoided federal charges were identified by police as members of a robbery crew that committed violent purse snatchings around the Bay Area. Malepeai would later admit to police that the group went to Oakland’s Chinatown specifically looking for woman who looked Asian to rob because they viewed them as “easy targets.”
Both Malepeai and Davis were charged with wire fraud for allegedly using stolen documents to steal victims’ identity. Davis was sentenced to two years in federal prison back in October 2024, records show.
But Malepeai’s case became a success story. In court filings, federal prosecutors said she “worked hard to meet her goals, including securing employment, completing her DUI courses, and participating in mental health treatment.” They also noted — as did Ross — that she’d been in a relationship with Davis during the crimes and that he was allegedly abusive to her.
“These accomplishments are strong indicators of success going forward, are indicative of rehabilitation, and should deter future criminal conduct in the future,” a prosecution sentencing memo says.