OAKLAND — A woman has avoided jail time and a murder conviction after pleading no contest to accessory in connection with a January 2022 fatal shooting allegedly committed by her pimp, court records show.
Mariah Bostick, 32, pleaded no contest to accessory after the fact in the Jan. 18, 2022 death of 45-year-old Virgil Earl Robinson III. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped a murder charge against her. She was formally sentenced in August to a two-year probation term and to time she already served while in jail awaiting a resolution to her case, court records show.
Bostick was a sex worker who agreed to an encounter with Robinson near San Antonio Park, an area where prostitutes are known to bring clients. The East Oakland park was the scene of a prior homicide involving a shootout between a pimp and a John that killed a woman. According to court records, Robinson and her had an argument, leading Bostick to call her pimp to the area.
She allegedly told her pimp, “hop on him, daddy,” and the pimp responded by shooting Robinson, authorities say. The pimp has never been publicly identified or charged in connection with the shooting. Bostick was arrested and charged with murder.
Bostick was released from jail last year, and ordered to attend parenting classes. She received all “good” and “exceptional” markings and was lauded for an overall “great” performance, according to progress reports filed in court.
At Bostick’s March 12 preliminary hearing, prosecutors argued that while she wasn’t the killer, she “is the one instigating, directing the unknown co-participant’s conduct,” and that she continued to do so after the pimp told Robinson, “I’m going to shoot you.” Bostick’s then-lawyer argued that she was a trafficking victim with an irate and hostile john who was caught between a rock and a hard place.
“Within sex work if you are sent out to work and you lose money or don’t come back with money there can be consequences for that…she is at risk of harm,” attorney Jeff Wozniak, who didn’t represent Bostick for her sentencing, said at the preliminary hearing.
Judge Thomas Reardon held Bostick to answer on a murder count, while noting the relatively low legal bar for preliminary hearings. But he openly doubted whether she actually intended for Robinson to die.
“I think she has created and participated in a circumstance which is with reckless indifference to human life as to what might occur under these circumstances,” Reardon said at the hearing. “But intending to kill him, I just don’t see it.”
