Charles County man pleads guilty in St. Mary’s robberies

Three others also charged at holdups in jewelry store, pharmacy

Federal prosecutors report that a Charles County man pleaded guilty this week to armed robbery, conspiracy and weapons charges from a pair of holdups in 2014 in St. Mary’s, at a jewelry store and a pharmacy.

Abdelrahim Ayyad, 50, of White Plains faces sentencing in September in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.

In June 2014, according to the prosecutors’ office, Ayyad conspired with Furman Troy, Darrell Lee and Michael Burgess to rob commercial businesses in St. Mary’s.

Ayyad admitted, the prosecutors’ office reports, that he drove to Washington, D.C., to pick up Troy, Lee and Burgess and take them to T.C. Martin Jewelers in Charlotte Hall, where Ayyad handed Troy a bag containing a gun, and Lee brandished a firearm at the owner of the store. Troy bound the store owner with duct tape, and the robbers demanded the key to the jewelry counter from an employee of the store before stealing jewelry worth more than $8,800, cash and a laptop computer.

Four days later, the prosecutors’ office reports, Ayyad and Burgess drove to New Market Pharmacy near Mechanicsville, with Troy and Lee following in another vehicle. Ayyad and Burgess waited in their vehicle while Troy and Lee robbed the pharmacy, where Lee again brandished a gun and Troy bound a pharmacy employee with duct tape. Troy and Lee stole cash and prescription bottles containing oxycodone, methadone, hydrocodone and endocet, valued at $8,897.

Troy, 45, and Lee, 48, both of Charlotte Hall, and Burgess, 54, of Alexandria, Va., previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the robberies, according to the prosecutors’ office. Troy was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and Lee and Burgess are awaiting sentencing on the charges from the investigation initially carried out by St. Mary’s sheriff’s detectives and county prosecutors.