BENJAMIN SANCHEZ JR.
WESTFIELD – A city man who concealed his face while allegedly robbing a convenience store didn’t cover a tattoo and, a result of his omission, he has been charged for the robbery.
Westfield Police Det. Brian Freeman reports that a review of security video recorded during a June 5 armed robbery at the South Maple Street Sunoco station showed a man with a hoodie pulled tightly around his face to hide his features was wearing shorts which revealed a lightning bolt tattoo on his right calf.
Freeman wrote in a court document that the distinctive tattoo allowed him to identify the suspect as Benjamin Sanchez Jr., 31, of 24 E. Silver St., Westfield. Sanchez’s tattoo had been photographed by police, Freeman reports, at the time of his arrest June 28 on charges stemming from a similar armed robbery at Honey Land Farms on Russell Road.
At the Sunoco station, the clerk who was robbed told police that the robber had “pointed something at him which was inside his right sleeve” and said that it appeared as if the robber “wanted him to believe it was a weapon.”
The clerk said that he gave the man, who “apologized two or three times and called him ‘bro’,” $248.32 before the robber fled.
Sanchez was arraigned on a charge of armed and masked robbery as a result of the Honey Land Farms robbery and, after a dangerousness hearing, he was held without right to bail.
Arraigned on another charge of armed and masked robbery Friday, Judge William O’Grady set his bail for the new charge at $25,000 pending an Oct. 8 hearing.
