Lopez ‘absolutely not involved’ in robbery

(CNS): The George Town man accused of being the getaway driver in a liquor store armed robbery just before Christmas last year has denied any involvement at the crime. Andrew Lopez, who the crown says used his mother’s car in the heist and hid the distinctive gold sprayed shotgun used in the stick-up in the attic of his room, told a jury he knew nothing about the crime. After the crown closed its case against him and his co-defendants, Randy Connor and Bron Webb, Lopez took the witness stand in his own defence on Tuesday and said he was “absolutely not” involved.

Lopez (22) said that he had nothing to do with the robbery at Blackbeard’s in Grand Harbour last December, when over $5,000 was stolen. He said that he had never seen the gold shotgun used in the robbery recovered from his house or any of the other evidence linked to the crime found at his home and had no idea how it all got there.

On 17 December 2014 at around 7:30pm, when three armed men burst into the booze shop and demanded cash from the staff at gunpoint and robbed a customer of her purse , Lopez said he was dropping his girlfriend home in a white Mercedes.

Although he admitted using his mother’s car, the black Ford Escape identified as the getaway car, earlier that day, he told the court that he later switched back to the Mercedes. He said he had left the Ford SUV parked in the driveway in front of his home with the keys in the ignition and the windows open. Unable to say who was driving the car at the time of the robbery because he had not given anyone permission to use it, he told the court that whoever it was, it was not him.

Lopez said that, since many people “used his house to chill”, someone else must have taken it to commit the crime while he was dropping off his girlfriend. He claimed that the first he knew that anything was amiss was when he returned home and noticed the Ford Escape had moved from where he had parked it. He then saw his friend, Bron Webb, outside his house near the car and soon after the police arrived and started ordering him to get down on the ground and placed him under arrest.

The case was adjourned after Lopez gave his evidence in chief Tuesday afternoon but it is scheduled to continue with cross-examination by the lawyers representing his co-accused and the crown at 10am Wednesday.