OAKLAND – A lady has avoided prison time and a murder conviction by pleading not guilty to aiding and abetting a fatal January 2022 shooting allegedly committed by her pimp, court records show.
Mariah Bostick, 32, pleaded no contest to aiding and abetting the death of 45-year-old Virgil Earl Robinson III on Jan. 18, 2022. In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped the murder charge against her. She was formally sentenced in August to 2 years' probation and time she had already served while in jail awaiting a resolution to her case, court records show.
Bostick was a sex employee who met Robinson near San Antonio Park, an area where prostitutes are known to bring clients. The East Oakland park was the scene of a previous murder that involved a shootout between a pimp and a john that left a girl dead. According to court records, she and Robinson got into an argument, and Bostick called her pimp to the world.
She allegedly told her pimp, “Get lost, daddy,” and the pimp responded by shooting Robinson, authorities say. The pimp was never publicly identified or charged in reference to the shooting. Bostick was arrested and charged with murder.
Bostick was released from prison last yr and ordered to attend parenting classes. She received only grades of “good” and “exceptional,” in keeping with progress reports filed in court, and was praised for her overall “great” performance.
At Bostick's preliminary hearing on March 12, prosecutors argued that while she was not the killer, she was “the one who instigated and directed the conduct of the unknown accomplice” and that she continued to achieve this when the pimp told Robinson, “I'm going to shoot you.” Bostick's attorney on the time argued that she was a victim of human trafficking with an indignant and hostile john caught in a bind.
“In sex work, if you're sent to work and you lose money or you don't come back with money, there can be consequences… she's at risk of harm,” attorney Jeff Wozniak, who didn’t represent Bostick at her sentencing, said on the preliminary hearing.
Judge Thomas Reardon convicted Bostick of murder, citing the relatively low legal hurdles for preliminary hearings, but openly doubted that she had truly intended Robinson's death.
“I think she created and participated in a situation that was done with reckless indifference to human life and what could happen under those circumstances,” Reardon said on the hearing. “But that she intended to kill him, I just don't see that.”
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