Washington, D.C. – A 34-year-old Arlington, Virginia man, Lewis Norwood, was sentenced today by the Honorable Herbert Dixon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to seven years in prison for armed robbery and a weapon offense in connection with the brazen armed robbery of a cashier of a small convenience store on July 24, 2007, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced. Norwood was sentenced following an earlier guilty plea. Two other individuals, Van Morris and Clinton Redmon, were sentenced previously to six years and five years, respectively, for their roles in the offense.

As set out in the guilty plea and sentencing proceedings, at about 2:30 p.m., on July 24, 2007, Norwood, Morris and Redmon, entered the rear entrance of 1500 Market, a small convenience store at 1500 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Morris was armed with a kitchen knife with a six-inch long blade. The only other person in the store at the time was the cashier, a foreign-born woman in her mid-50's. Morris confronted the cashier with the knife. As he did so, Redmon reached over the counter and removed all the paper currency from the cash register and stuffed it in his pockets. Norwood then took the entire cash register drawer and emptied the coins into a bag. He also demanded that the cashier give him a carton of cigarettes; she complied and he placed those in the bag as well. To prevent the cashier from calling 911, Norwood broke the store phone, putting the handset in his back pocket. All three men then proceeded to leave the store. As he left, Norwood helped himself to a can of beer from one of the store refrigerators.

Shortly after the robbery, the Metropolitan Police Department recovered the store’s security video, which had recorded most of the robbery, and distributed still photographs from the video showing the perpetrators to officers assigned to the area around the market. On August 1, 2007, Norwood was arrested when an officer spotted him sitting on a park bench in Dupont Circle.

The U.S. Attorney thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Liebman, the assigned prosecutor; MPD Detective Curtis Prince, the assigned detective; and MPD Crime Scene Officer Dewey Watkins, who helped recover the store video.