Federal Charges Filed in Armed Robbery At Park City Liquor Store

WICHITA, KAN. – Federal charges were filed Thursday in Wichita against two men accused of trying to rob a Park City liquor store where a store employee shot one of them and held the other at gunpoint until police arrived, Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said.

A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Wichita charged Roland Donnell Ross, 28, Wichita, Kan., and Michael Ray Phillips, 37, Wichita, Kan., with one count of commercial robbery and one count of brandishing firearms during the robbery.

An investigator’s affidavit alleges that on May 24 the two men were carrying guns when they tried to rob MGS liquor at 6200 N. Broadway in Park City, Kan. A store employee said when one of the robbers asked him if he was ready to die the employee grabbed a gun he had in the store and fired two shots. One robber, identified later as Phillips, ran from the business and escaped. The store employee forced the other robber, identified later as Ross, to put his gun down. The employee held Ross at gunpoint until the police came.

On May 25, Phillips was admitted to Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., with a wound to the chest. He claimed he had been injured by falling on a stick, but an examination revealed he had been shot.

If convicted, the defendants face a penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 on the robbery charge and a penalty of not less than seven years consecutive to the underlying sentence on the brandishing charge. The Park City Police Department, the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Metzger is prosecuting.