Hotel robbery suspect arraigned

The suspect in the robbery of two hotels faces a bail review today, the first of two hearing dates set at his recent arraignment in Madera County Superior Court.

At his video arraignment, suspect Michael Hundley, 20, was ordered by Judge Mitchell Rigby to return for today's bail review and on Feb. 17 for his preliminary hearing.

Huntley had been a suspect in a robbery on the morning of Jan. 8 at the Hampton Inn & Suites hotel at 3254 Airport Drive, where Hundley, believed by the clerk to be armed, reportedly made off with $300 from the hotel. After the robbery, Madera Police, reaching out to the community for leads, posted the surveillance footage on their Facebook page, from which they quickly were tipped off.

“Somebody from the Merced area saw our video,” Trukki said. “And contacted the Merced Police Department, who in turn contacted us, and said: ‘Hey, we had a similar robbery, and these are our photos.’”

The suspect in the Madera robbery, Trukki said, matched the suspect in a similar robbery at the Ramada Inn in Merced. After receiving tips from calls to Crime Stoppers, police were reportedly told that Hundley was the robber.

It was discovered that Hundley was living out of a car in Fresno, where he was on a misdemeanor probation. He was found by the Fresno Police on Tulare and M Streets, where he was stopped and apprehended.

The Fresno Police Department then contacted the Special Investigations Unit in Madera, and did a search of Hundley’s vehicle. Inside, they reportedly found the sweatshirt that he had been wearing in the surveillance footage. Following an interview, Hundley allegedly confessed to both robberies, and is being held in lieu $50,000 bail.