East Contra Costa men charged with kidnapping, home invasion robbery

ANTIOCH — Two East Contra Costa men were arrested and charged with nine felonies for allegedly committing two robberies here on the same day, court records show.

Jesse Scott, 40, of Antioch, and Ryan Arnold, 27, of Bay Point, were charged with kidnapping, home invasion robbery, second-degree robbery and gun possession in a nine-count felony complaint, court records show. They were held to answer at a December preliminary hearing and remain jailed, with bail set at $1.25 million each. Their next court appearance is in late February.

The charging records allege that on July 22, 2024, Scott and Arnold first robbed a man they arranged to meet for a jewelry transaction, with one posing as a buyer and the other ostensibly standing in as the jewelry appraiser. Instead, they took $4,400 from the victim at gunpoint, according to police.

Authorities say they later found texts between Scott and Arnold that explicitly laid out various robbery plots that day.

“I can act like I got hella merch for sale then once he meet us we can rob eem (sic),” Arnold allegedly texted Scott, according to records.

“Let’s do it,” Scott allegedly replied. Police later found a video of the men selling jewelry at a cash for gold exchange in Concord, authorities said.

That same night, four men allegedly robbed a resident on the 1700 block of D Street in Antioch, forcing him into his home at gunpoint and grabbing his wife by the hair as he begged them not to hurt her or his children, authorities said.

Scott and Arnold were identified as suspects from surveillance footage and cellphone location records, authorities said. A third suspect, identified as a 27-year-old Antioch man, was arrested but only charged with an unrelated carjacking and robbery, court records show.

Scott has served almost nine years in federal prison for multiple bank robberies, according to court records. A plea agreement he signed in 2005 says he robbed a bank in Nevada for nearly $18,000, and another in Oakley for nearly $10,000. In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed not to charge him for similar robberies in Walnut Creek, San Jose and at the Sunvalley Shopping Center in Concord, all of which occurred in 2004, records show.