Two arrested, charged with robbery
Published 6:28 pm Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Selma police detectives arrested two residents Tuesday and accused them of theft of property second degree and false reporting to a law enforcement officer.
The arrests come just days after a store manager, Candace Johnson, 22 of Selma, reported an armed robbery July 9 at the night deposit box of a local bank.
Johnson and Dexter Wilmer, 20, of Selma were arrested and booked into the Dallas County Jail on the charges.
“Officers began to suspect that the robbery did not actually occur when the story told by the manager did not match with what a patrol supervisor in the area observed at the time the original incident was reported,” said Lt. David Evans, a spokesman for the Selma Police Department.
Authorities said Johnson was manager at Gamestop and Wilmer was an employee.
Further investigation by Detectives Jeff Hardy and Fred Walker gathered from surveillance tapes made the manager’s story even more unlikely, Evans said.
The police spokesman said Johnson confessed the incident was a hoax to cover internal theft.
“She confessed. He has not yet,” said Evans, “but there is plenty of evidence to convict him.”
Last week, Johnson told authorities she was approached by a black male in shorts and a tank top wearing something over his face. The man had a gun and told her to drop the money, authorities said.
She told police the man ran north on Broad Street from Regions Bank’s night deposit, 2412 Broad St. with a deposit bag containing about $1,400 in cash and a check for $108.98.
Bonds were set at $15,000 on the theft charge and $500 on the false reporting charge. The theft of property is a felony charge, meaning a serious crime, usually punishable by at least one year in prison. False reporting is a misdemeanor, meaning an offense for which a person may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than a year.