WASHINGTON — The Justice Department unsealed federal charges this week against a D.C. woman accused of acting as the getaway driver in a string of robberies up and down the East Coast.
Ashley Monique Gause, 30, was taken into custody last Friday for her alleged role in a group that committed at least 18 robberies throughout D.C., Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey. Federal prosecutors said those robberies occurred between May 2020 and May 2021, when Gause was arrested in Anne Arundel County during the robbery of a CVS. Gause pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and false imprisonment in that case and was sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but 18 months suspended. Gause was released in January, but arrested again in March, also in Anne Arundel County, on misdemeanor assault and theft charges.
According to a detention memo filed by federal prosecutors this week, Gause – who went by the nickname “Cray” – was part of a multi-state robbery scheme that targeted pharmacies and cell phone stores from Virginia to New Jersey. Prosecutors said Gause acted as a scout and getaway driver for unnamed co-conspirators. She was charged individually in connection with at least 12 robberies.
“The robberies followed a similar pattern,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Gold wrote in the memo. “Ms. Gause and her co-conspirators would search for target locations. Data extracted from Ms. Gause’s cell phone along with cell site location information showed that for days or weeks leading up to a robbery, she would search for an ideal store to rob. For a pharmacy, this often meant looking for a store that stayed open 24 hours and that carried opioids, Adderall, and promethazine.”
Investigators have linked Gause and her alleged conspirators to robberies in Maryland in Bethesda, Beltsville, Wheaton, Hyattsville and Laurel, as well as Henrico, Virginia, and at multiple locations in D.C.
Once a store was located, Gold wrote, Gause would drop off two-to-three co-conspirators and stage their vehicle – often rented or stolen – so they could make a quick getaway. Gold said Gause’s co-conspirators would threaten or physically assault store employees, often with weapons, during the course of the robberies. Still shots from security footage included in the detention memo shows unidentified individuals in black hoodies and masks holding multiple people at gunpoint, including two who have been forced to lie on the floor.
After pills or cell phones were obtained from the robberies, the DOJ says Gause would sell them in D.C. – either on the street, in the case of drugs, or to secondary phone stores. Gause’s role in the alleged scheme came to an end on May 26, 2021, when Anne Arundel County police arrested her after she attempted to flee from a CVS store where her co-conspirators zip-tied a store clerk and demanded money and pills. Before being taken into custody, Gause led police on a 44-mile high-speed chase.
Gause faces charges alleging twelve “distinct crimes of violence,” three counts of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. In their memo, prosecutors asked a federal judge to detain Gause pending trial.
“Each of these crimes, which spanned a year and hundreds of miles, left victims terrified and traumatized,” Gold wrote.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Amy B. Jackson agreed and ordered Gause held without bond. Gause, who was being represented by court-appointed attorney Stephen Brennwald, was ordered to return to court on June 22 – her 31st birthday – for a status hearing.