A San Fernando Valley woman who admitted acting as the getaway driver in two armed robberies of small stores was sentenced Thursday to the 18 months she already served in federal custody.
Abigail Luckey, 51, of North Hollywood, was also ordered to pay $17,829 in restitution.
Luckey pleaded guilty in January in Los Angeles federal court to one count of interference with commerce by robbery and one count of attempted interference with commerce by robbery.
In her plea agreement, Luckey admitted acting as the driver in a robbery on Feb. 4, 2024, and an attempted robbery 10 days later in Downey that resulted in the arrest of the three-person robbery crew. She denied her involvement in another 10 robberies that federal prosecutors accuse her of participating in.
“There is no allegation that Luckey was armed, went into any store, personally took money from anyone, personally harmed anyone, or did anything other than drive to/from the robberies on two occasions,” Luckey’s attorney, Anthony M. SolÃs, wrote.
Prosecutors, though, maintain that Luckey was the getaway driver in a total of a dozen armed robberies of smoke shops, donut shops and convenience stores in Los Angeles and Orange counties — a crime spree that was interrupted when she and a co-defendant eloped to Las Vegas.
According to the government’s sentencing position, “cell phone location data pins defendant’s phone at all 12 robberies at the time and location of each robbery. Her car was photographed at eight of the robberies. Defendant obtained the gun, booked the robbery crew’s hotel room and married one of the robbers in the middle of the spree.”
In arguing for a prison term of over five years, prosecutors wrote that Luckey “was the getaway driver for each of the robbery crew’s dangerous heists from Jan. 29 to Feb. 14, 2024, and her sentence should reflect that culpability.”
Luckey’s co-defendant and husband, Antonio Bland, 36, also of North Hollywood, was sentenced in February to 16 years, seven months in federal prison for running the operation. He was also ordered to pay $17,829 in restitution to the 14 victims of the crimes.
Bland pleaded guilty in November 2025 to one count of interference with commerce by robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm in a crime of violence.
A third defendant, Ronnie Tucker, 24, of Long Beach, also pleaded guilty to felony charges and is awaiting sentencing.
The robberies of a dozen Southland businesses took place in January and February of 2024. The victimized businesses were one smoke shop in Tustin, nine 7-Eleven stores in North Hollywood, Burbank, Torrance, Van Nuys, Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena, and two donut shops in Los Angeles and Downey.
Prosecutors said 14 people were held at gunpoint. One robbery victim from Glendale recalled a gun being pointed “directly at my face. I was certain that my life was about to end,” he said in court papers.
Headquarters for the crew was a room at the Studio Lodge Hotel in North Hollywood, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors allege Luckey stole a gun from an ex-boyfriend for use in the robberies. Court papers say that on Jan. 24, 2024, a Las Vegas man called police to report that Luckey, who was an ex-girlfriend, had come to his apartment asking for his black Taurus 9mm pistol. As he was showing her the gun, Luckey snatched it away and ran out of the apartment, the man said.
Five days later, the robberies began.
The heists typically occurred late at night and usually involved Bland and Tucker who entered each business wearing hooded sweatshirts and face masks, prosecutors said. In at least two robberies, Luckey waited outside for her crime partners to complete the thefts before they fled the scene in her white Chevrolet Cruze, prosecutors said.
On Feb. 6, 2024, Luckey and Bland drove to Las Vegas and were legally married before returning to Southern California where another robbery took place two days later, according to the government.
Luckey’s attorney wrote that the woman married Bland just 43 days after they first met.
Bland was completing a 15-year sentence for carjacking when the two met “online” — with Bland illegally using a cell phone in prison to communicate with Luckey. Luckey picked up Bland upon his release from Corcoran State Prison.
“Shortly after, Bland began to rob stores at gunpoint — on two occasions using Luckey as the `getaway driver,”’ according to SolÃs.
Luckey’s involvement in the robberies and her relationship with Bland “is best explained as an outgrowth of her deep depression and grief following the death of her prior husband,” her attorney wrote.
“He told her the things she wanted to hear while she was nearly immobilized with grief,” SolÃs wrote. “When he turned his attention to her, she was comforted and believed that their relationship was something positive. When Bland was released from prison, he quickly recruited her in to criminal conduct, leading her down a path that resulted in her imprisonment.”
The robberies ended after Bland, Tucker and Luckey committed an attempted robbery of a donut shop in Downey during the early morning hours of Feb. 14, 2024, when a store employee in self-defense fired a handgun during the crime, hitting a wall of the building.
After the employee fired the weapon, Bland and Tucker ran out of the store. Law enforcement witnessed the attempted armed robbery and, shortly afterward, pulled over the Chevy containing the three defendants, and later retrieved a firearm from the vehicle.