Man indicted in Arby’s robbery

STAFF report

WARREN — A Trumbull County grand jury indicted a man who is accused of punching a female employee in the face at the West Market Street Arby’s Restaurant and trying to steal money from the cash register.

Robert E. Cherry, 34, of Larry Lane, Bazetta Township, is charged with robbery and faces up to eight years in prison if convicted.

Police said Cherry walked into the restaurant at about 8 p.m. Jan. 26, purchased a cup of water from a male employee and then asked a 30-year-old female employee for change.

While she had the register open, Cherry punched the woman in the face and tried to take cash from the drawer, police said.

The woman closed the drawer on his hand, and a male co-worker jumped over the counter and put the assailant in a headlock, police said.

Another customer standing nearby also helped the employee, and they struggled with the man briefly on the floor.

That’s when a third customer, a 340-pound off-duty security guard in the drive-through lane, came inside and stopped the assailant from struggling any further by putting a knee in the suspect’s back, police said.

When police arrived, they took Cherry into custody.

A grand jury also indicted Taemarr L. Walker, 19, of Jackson Street Southwest, on a charge of illegal possession of a firearm because of a previous criminal conviction.

Walker is accused of having the firearm Jan. 18 near an apartment on Lancer Court Northwest, where Ahmaze D. King, 26, of Lender Avenue Southwest, was killed by gunfire.

Walker has not been charged in King’s death, but he is a “person of interest” in the case, Wayne Mackey, a Warren police detective, has said.

Further charges are pending lab results of two guns found in the area, Mackey said.

During testimony in Warren Municipal Court, Mackey said Walker and a woman were sitting on a couch inside one of the apartments when Walker ordered the woman into another room.

The woman then heard talking and gunfire, then found King in the doorway of the apartment, shot four times, including once in the head.

Walker went to the hospital that night with two gunshot wounds.

Cherry and Walker will be arraigned at 10:30 a.m. March 13 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.