Crime & Safety

Verona Subway Armed Robber Pleads Guilty

Newark man faces up to life in prison for a string of armed robberies across North Jersey.

By Paul Milo

A Newark man admitted Thursday he took part in more than a dozen armed robberies, including the May robbery of a Verona Subway, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said.

Bobby Dawson, 30, also pleaded guilty to committing an armed carjacking during a six-month crime spree that began in late 2012.

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Dawson faces up to life in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines when he is sentenced in March 2014.

In many of the robberies, employees were restrained with zip ties or duct tape at gunpoint before Dawson and an accomplice cleaned out the cash register.

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In a few cases, Fishman said, the violence escalated. On April 1, Dawson forced a clerk to hit the ground by firing a .380-caliber handgun during the robbery of the MS&K Confectionary in Maplewood. On April 24, Dawson pistol-whipped the employee of a Krauszer’s store in West Orange. 

On May 30, Dawson and two other men tied up employees of the Subway on Bloomfield Avenue in Verona and made off with $400 in cash.

He also robbed Shopper’s Express and Belleville News and Food, both in Belleville; hit at Krauszers in Bloomfield twice, as well as a Smashburger in Paramus.

Dawson also struck half a dozen times in Newark —including twice at Newark Community Pharmacy — as well as in Linden and Kearny.

Two other men were charged in connection with the Subway robbery, James Darby, 26, and Antwon Yarbrough, 27, both of Newark.


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