PANAMA CITY — Assistant Public Defender Fritz Mann told jurors Tuesday to look at the details to shape their verdict in Maurice Robinson’s burglary trial this week.
Robinson, 32, of Opa-locka, is charged with two counts of grand theft of more than $100,000, burglary of a structure with damage of more than $1,000, burglary of a structure or conveyance and possessing burglary tools. He faces up to life in prison if convicted as charged.
Robinson is accused of participating in three jewelry store burglaries the morning of Nov. 19, 2007. His trial began Tuesday with opening statements and the first witnesses. The trial is expected to go late into Thursday or Friday.
Authorities estimated the burglars, who may have hit several other jewelry stores in the region, made off with $1.5 million in merchandise Nov. 19.
“You’ve heard the expression, ‘the devil is in the details,'” Mann told jurors in his opening statement. “In this case, the verdict is in the details.”
According to police, as many as eight people were involved in burglaries beginning about 5 a.m. with Maharaja’s Fine Jewelry & Gifts in the Grand Panama Beach shopping complex on Middle Beach Road. They hit Surf Jewelers 23 minutes later, then struck the Maharaja’s store on 23rd Street at 5:40 a.m., police said.
Witnesses to the 23rd Street break-in identified two getaway vehicles, and police gave chase. One car led police into Panama City, and officers lost sight of the car for about a minute near Varsity Drive. When it was located, Robinson was found in the area, and officers said he fled and discarded three watches as he ran.
The other vehicle got away.
Mann said Robinson was in Panama City to visit his mother and brothers during the Thanksgiving weekend. Mann said Robinson ended up at a 1137 Varsity Drive about 5:45 a.m. the morning of Nov. 19, 2007, to say goodbye to a girl he met who lived there. At the same time, a car he had rented ended up there after being stolen sometime before and used in the jewelry store burglaries, Mann said.
He said the real culprit parked the car behind the house in an effort to shake police, ran from the car, threw several watches into the tall grass behind the house, jumped a fence and escaped. When police arrived, Robinson ran from them, but Mann said there was “no way” he could have discarded the watches the way officers said he did because the items were found several yards from the path he’d taken.
When arrested, Robinson was wearing light-colored clothing; the burglar had been described as wearing a dark blue or black jumpsuit, gloves and a mask. No mask, jumpsuit or gloves were ever recovered.
Prosecutor Larry Basford, however, told jurors that a Tag Heuer watch found in Robinson’s pocket matched one taken in a similar burglary on Oct. 23, 2007, in Dothan, Ala. At that burglary, officers found spots of blood that were matched by DNA to Robinson.
Basford said embedded in Robinson’s brown boots and sprinkled on his clothes and in his pockets were chips of glass from all three Bay County burglaries.
One of the burglars captured by a surveillance camera in the beach Maharaja’s was wearing brown boots. The burglars worked as a team, smashing their way into each store, smashing into display cabinets and making off with the goods in less than three minutes.
Source: www.newsherald.com/news
