Guilty verdict in armored car heist

The robbers who engaged in a shootout with an armored car guard — a shootout that left the armored car guard wounded — were a bunch of amateur-hour "clowns," a defense attorney said today.

Danny Reaves, 34, was a drug dealer but he was no clown, said Shannon O'Connor, an assistant federal public defender representing Reaves.

O'Connor told jurors during closing arguments of Reaves' federal robbery trial that his client was simply a bystander walking to his van May 1 when he happened to be shot in the parking lot of the Weber Place Shopping Center, 7414 N. 30th St.

Hardly, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Norris told jurors there was overwhelming evidence that the robbery was the work of professionals, "not clowns." And, he said, there was overwhelming evidence that Reaves, a convicted robber, was involved: the fact that he was shot in the wrist, a shot that shattered his forearm.

A federal jury agreed and in a unanimous decision this afternoon found Reaves guilty of robbing the armored car and using a weapon. Investigators have been unable to identify any other alleged robbers besides Reaves.

The May 1 robbery left shoppers and workers scrambling for cover. And it left the guard, 22-year-old Princeton Hervey, scrambling to survive.

The robbers first fired a Taser at Hervey but one of the Taser's two prongs didn't engage. One of the robbers then opened fire — striking Hervey in the leg.

Hervey, a guard for Rochester Armored Car Co. returned fire, hitting at least one of the robbers.

After being shot, Norris said, Reaves fled to St. Louis where he went to an East St. Louis hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound.

Upon his return to Omaha, investigators arrested him as he walked out of his home with a bandage wrapping his arm. Inside his home near 69th and Pinkney Street, investigators found about $8,000 in cash — including 34 one-hundred dollar bills and 214 twenty-dollar bills.

Meanwhile, detectives had found a Taser gun left behind in the parking lot. They were able to trace the Taser back to an Omaha woman, who acknowledged that she purchased the Taser for Reaves.

O'Connor asked jurors to look at where the blood was at the crime scene. Investigators found no blood by the back of the truck where the robbers grabbed the $31,000 in cash and ran — and no blood where the shots were fired.

The only reason Reaves had so many large bills is because he is a marijuana dealer, O'Connor said. And the only reason he fled the parking lot that morning was because he had about 20 marijuana plants in his car trunk.

"He's a drug dealer," O'Connor said. "He sells large amounts of marijuana. He knew he would get caught up in this if he stayed."

Norris argued that the robbery was the sophisticated work of robbers who knew what they were doing.

They knew to try to pull off a robbery on the first of the month, when the armored car would be arriving to transport large amounts of cash.

Norris noted that Reaves owes $200,000 in restitution after serving about four years in prison for a 2002 robbery of a Rochester armored car. In that case, Norris said, Reaves was part of an "inside job" in which the robbers fired pepper spray at the armored guard to make it look like it was an ambush.

In this case, Norris noted, the robbers tried to use a Taser to subdue Harvey. After the robbery, the prosecutor said, they took the getaway car and set fire to it.

Norris also pointed out that Reaves sent several letters to the woman who bought the Taser for him, telling her what to say to authorities.

"Are those the actions and words of an innocent man?" Norris asked. "Obviously not."

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