"I am the night manager at BackBiters, which is a 24-hour adult-oriented
book and video store. After 11:30 p.m., I am the only employee in the store.
I was at work at 12:30 a.m. last Friday night, I mean Saturday morning,
when a man came in. This is the same man whom I have identified in a line-up
and later learned to be Jerry Dahlmer.
"This man came up to me when I was at the register, looked me straight
in the eye, and said, "Open up the register and I won't mess with you or
you toupee." He's a big, strong guy and could have squashed me like a bug.
So I opened up the cash drawer and he snatched all the bills and put them
in a bag. He ordered me to hit the floor and count to a thousand backwards.
He said that if I stood up early, I'd get my name in the papers -- in the
obituary section. So I did as he told me and got down on the floor and
counted to a thousand. Then I got up and called the police.
"No one else was in the store but I could see one other person, a man,
standing on the sidewalk just outside the front door. I have also picked
him out of a line-up and learned his name to be Sam Ezeemony. The front
of the store is a large display window, but I could see that he was just
standing there, looking up the street, as though he was waiting for a bus.
He walked up to the front of the store a few minutes before the robber
came in. I did not see him leave. He was there when I hit the floor, and
he was gone when I got up.
"While this man was at the register, I didn't know why the man was standing
there. He could have been waiting for a bus, or he could have been helping
him out somehow. I never saw them gesture or talk to one another. All I
knew at the time was that he wasn't going to help me. Even if he wasn't
helping him, he wouldn't have been able to realize that I was being robbed.
"The distance between the register and the front door is 44 feet. When
the police were in the store, I got a tape measure and measured it. The
man was at least another foot outside the door."
The police also have a statement from Sam Ezeemony:
"At 12:30 a.m. last Saturday, I was at BackBiters. Jerry was going to
rob the place, and I was supposed to stand lookout. I walked up to the
front of the store a few minutes before Jerry walked in. If somebody did
start to go in, I was supposed to ask them for a lot of directions and
act lost to keep them busy until Jerry walked out. I left when the guy
at cash register was gone. Jerry left about a minute later, carrying his
weight lifting bag."
In Connecticut, robbery is classified in three degrees. The highest
is first-degree robbery, which requires aggravating factors not present
in Dahlmer's case. The D.A. would prefer a conviction for second-degree
robbery because third-degree robbery carries the least severe penalty.
If the evidence at trial coincides with the statements Marvin and Ezeemony
have given the police, is Dahlmer likely to be convicted of second-degree
robbery?
