Charged in 3 Radio Shack stick-ups, pair found guilty of one in Lombard
Two Chicago men accused of targeting Radio Shack stores were found guilty Wednesday of the armed robbery of one last year near Lombard.
The one-day bench trial ended with convictions for Antuoine Adams, 39, and Ronaldo C. Crawford, 34, both of the 8700 block of Bishop Street. They'll be sentenced on Sept. 5 for the armed robbery of the store at 18W435 Roosevelt Road.
It was the third such Radio Shack robbery the pair was charged with; the others occurred in Des Plaines and Elgin.
Brad Kruckenberg the lone clerk the day of the robbery was working his morning shift at the Lombard store on June 5, 2013, when two armed gunmen, initially pretending to be customers, robbed the store of more than $40,000 in cash and electronics.
Kruckenberg testified Wednesday that Crawford first approached him at the counter about 12:30 p.m. and asked whether the store had a particular phone in stock.
While Kruckenberg was searching an online inventory, he said Adams asked to use a restroom. When denied, Adams pulled what was later determined to be a replica Glock pellet gun and placed it on the counter.
"He told me to take all of the money out of the register and place it into a Radio Shack bag," Kruckenberg said.
He said the men then led him to a cage in the rear of the store where the "high ticket items," costing more than $50, were stored.
"I was instructed to get five large bags and put all of the cellphones into the large white bags," Kruckenberg said.
Surveillance video from the store, played during the trial, shows a man with a gun standing near Kruckenberg as he fills the bags with cellphones and headphones. A second man is seen on the video carrying out other items, including a flat-screen television.
When they were done, Kruckenberg said they put him in the store's washroom and told him to count to "300 or 500" before coming out.
A few weeks later, Adams and Crawford were charged with the armed robbery of a Radio Shack in Des Plaines.
In that case, police there said they were able to track the suspects through a tracking device on one of the electronics they had stolen. That investigation then linked the pair to the robbery of the Lombard store, authorities said.
Prosecutors said the men have no ties to the electronics chain and targeted the stores strictly for the "easy to steal, easy to sell merchandise."
Further, both men pleaded guilty in April to a May 2013 robbery of an Elgin Radio Shack, and each was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The Des Plaines case is still pending in Cook COunty.
For the Lombard robbery, they face an additional six to 60 years in prison.