Police: Arizona Woman Led Sons on Crime Spree

Phoenix police say Roberson had recently lost her job and persuaded her sons and the others living with her to commit robberies to help pay for rent and her car loan.

An undated file photo, Ma Barker is shown. Cynthia Mary Roberson is an unemployed mother who...

An undated file photo, Ma Barker is shown. Cynthia Mary Roberson is an unemployed mother who Phoenix, Ariz., police say recently led her 12- and 14-year-old sons and their young friends to commit at least 20 armed robberies and aggravated assaults in the Phoenix area, including the beating of a teenage boy who had nothing more than an orange lollipop. When Phoenix police arrested her with most of the young suspects on May 29, they dubbed Roberson "Ma Barker," the infamous mother who led her four young sons to commit robberies in the early 1900s. (AP Photo, File)

(AP)

Phoenix police Sgt. Phil Roberts described Roberson as the ringleader, driving the youngsters to robberies in parks and along streets in Phoenix.

"I think she absolutely had a lot of influence," Roberts said. "She's driving them out, telling them how to do it — basically saying, 'Let's go out and let's commit a robbery tonight,' and then instructing some of the suspects on how to do the robbery and how the robbery should go down."

Roberson remains in jail and declined to speak with The Associated Press. Her attorney, Raymond Kimble, said he had just been assigned to her case and was not yet able to comment.

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Roberson pleaded not guilty to one count each of armed robbery, attempted armed robbery and attempted aggravated robbery. She is scheduled for an initial pretrial conference on July 30. If convicted, she faces between seven and 39 years in prison. Her kids and their friends were also arrested.

Police are calling the allegations against Roberson "revolting," but they pale in comparison to what the Barker boys did when they became adults.

By the 1920s, the Barker boy crimes escalated from robbing empty stores to kidnapping rich people and holding them for ransom, killing anyone who crossed them, and robbing banks crowded with people at gunpoint, Koblas said.

They even made women stand on the running boards of their getaway car so police wouldn't shoot at them.

"They killed someone almost every time they went out," Koblas said. "They thought nothing of taking human life."

Three of Barker's boys eventually went their own way, each living a life of crime. Freddie traveled with his mother across the Midwest and committed crimes with a man named Alvin Karpis, whom Freddie had met in prison.