Robbery suspect claims not to be stupid

Andrew Lopez

(CNS): A young George Town man stuck to his position that he did not take part in a liquor store robbery last Christmas, after a morning of cross examination by the crown Wednesday. Andrew Lopez told a jury that he would not be “so stupid” as to use his mother’s car in an armed robbery at a store with CCTV. And that such a thing would be “wicked” to his mother. Lopez insisted that he was in his white Mercedes dropping one of his two girlfriends in Savannah when the robbery at Blackbeard’s in Grand Harbour was underway.

Lopez persistently denied having anything to do with the armed heist, stating that he had left his mother’s black Ford Escape that was used in the robbery outside his home with the keys in the ignition and windows open when he left that evening. When he got back, the car had moved and he saw his friend, Bron Webb, in his yard smoking a cigarette, he said.

Questioned by Cheryl Richards QC, the director of public prosecutions, Lopez stuck to his story throughout. When he was asked directly about his role in the heist, he told the jury he was not involved.

“I did not rob the store with my mom’s jeep,” Lopez stated from the witness box. “I wouldn’t be so stupid to use my mom’s jeep and pull up in front of a store where I know there are cameras … that would be so wicked to my mom.”

He said the claims of his co-accused, Bron Webb and Randy Connor, that they were both at his house with him at the time of the robbery were not true. Lopez denied that Webb was sleeping on his bed when he arrived back from dropping his girlfriend off or that they had been “chilling” at his house drinking and smoking, which is what those men have claimed in their defence.

The case continues Thursday afternoon.