Man pleads to charges in two dollar store thefts
Defendant was captured the same day near Eastpointe High School
A 29-year-old Detroit man has pleaded no contest to four criminal charges in connection with two unarmed robberies at Dollar General stores in Warren from which he fled police, and a separate larceny in Roseville, all early last year.
Julian Poplar, who faces potential consequences for other alleged minor incident in other communities, entered the pleas last month in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens for incidents in February and March 2023 for which he likely will be sentenced May 2 by Judge Diane Druzinski to three years in prison under a tentative deal reached by the judge and Poplar’s attorney, Marissa Kulcsar.
Poplar on March 1, 2023 robbed the Dollar General store on Van Dyke Avenue near Martin Road by grabbing the cash drawer and running out of the store with it, police said. While officers were responding, they said they received notice of an unarmed robbery at a Dollar General store a mile away on Hoover Road.
Warren police located the defendant in a stolen black Chrysler 300 and attempted a traffic stop. Poplar fled at a high rate of speed, crashed his vehicle and fled on foot, police said. Officers said they later arrested him on foot near Eastpointe High School and found evidence from the robberies in the stolen vehicle.
For those incidents, he pleaded to one count each of unarmed robbery, larceny from a person and one count of second-degree fleeing police.
For a Feb. 21, 2023 incident in Roseville, he pleaded no contest to unarmed robbery.
He remains in the county jail in lieu of three bond valued at $575,000, 10%, but has legal “holds” on him for fleeing police and resisting arrest in February 2021 in Wayne County Circuit Court, with his next hearing set for Monday; resisting arrest in 36th District Court in Detroit; and larceny from a person in 46th District Court in Southfield, according to court and jail records.