Quick Verdict Returned In Multi-State Armed Robbery Crime Spree

MARIETTA, GA — An Atlanta man involved in a multi-state crime spree is going to prison for an armed robbery at an Austell CVS store. About 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 15, 2015, three men wearing masks and gloves entered the CVS store. The men, two of whom were armed, forced the two employees onto the ground, then stole cash drawers out of the registers. They also took the purse of a female employee. As they fled the store, a female customer was entering the store, and a gun was pointed at her, but the trio then fled.

Police learned that federal law-enforcement officers were investigating five earlier robberies of Walgreens stores in Florida in which cash drawers were taken by armed, masked men, and those officers had placed a GPS tracker on their suspects’ vehicle, the same vehicle used in the Austell case. That vehicle was registered to the mother of Roscoe Pugh. Federal agents executed a search warrant on Pugh’s home, where evidence they recovered included the purse taken from the Austell employee.

On Friday, it took a Cobb jury only about an hour to convict Pugh, now 31, of two counts of armed robbery and one count of aggravated assault.

Pugh was sentenced to 40 years, with 20 years to serve in prison and the balance on probation. Federal charges remain pending against him for the Florida crimes.

One codefendant, Jared David Jackson, now 31, of Conyers, remains charged in the Austell case. The third assailant has not been identified.