{"id":190,"date":"2026-05-12T23:34:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2026-05-12T23:34:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:34:52","slug":"man-accused-in-murder-for-hire-plot-to-silence-witness-faces-armed-robbery-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"Man accused in murder-for-hire plot to silence witness faces armed robbery trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<section>\n<p><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 A man accused in a murder-for-hire plot to silence a witness is appearing in court Tuesday for the armed robbery that prosecutors say led to that killing.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=188\">Body of missing ASU student found at Grand Canyon<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say Cudjoe Young robbed Mercedes Vega at gunpoint in 2020. Vega picked him out of a photo lineup and was set to testify against him at trial.<\/p>\n<p>While Young was in custody, detectives say he hired two childhood friends to kill Vega. She was found burning alive in a car off the I-10 in Tonopah in April 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Young appeared in court today solely for the armed robbery charge. Separately, three men including Young are set to go to trial later this year in connection with Vega\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=187\">Chandler man indicted in first case of AI-generated child porn possession<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If Young is convicted in that case, prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p><i>See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <\/i><i>Please click here to report it<\/i><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <\/i><i>it to us here<\/i><i> with a brief description.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=185\">Prosecution details events leading to woman shot inside Scottsdale police station<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prosecutors say Cudjoe Young robbed Mercedes Vega at gunpoint in 2020, and she was set to testify at trial before she was killed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Man accused in murder-for-hire plot to silence witness faces armed robbery trial - Tucson Moving Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=190\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Man accused in murder-for-hire plot to silence witness faces armed robbery trial - 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