A Memphis man has been charged with terrifying a family during an armed invasion and robbery of a home in Buckhead.
Leon Scott, who was recently arrested by FBI agents, made his initial appearance last week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
Since Jan. 31, there have been three armed invasions into homes in upscale Buckhead neighborhoods, the most recent one in late June. Atlanta police have said authorities have been investigating a possible connection between all three robberies.
“We’re extremely pleased,” former Atlanta mayor Sam Massell, president of the Buckhead Coalition, said of the arrest. “Buckhead was very alarmed when the first one happened. To have three of them was extremely worrisome to the entire community.”
The coalition had put up a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of those responsible for the armed invasions. Another $25,000 reward was put up by Crime Stoppers, said Amy Cornell, vice president of communications and programs for the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Scott is being linked to the armed invasion of a Buckhead home on May 25, according to court records. At the time, the house on Mt. Paran Road was occupied by a husband, his wife and their three minor children.
Two armed assailants, one of whom is alleged to be Scott, threatened to kill the family if they did not cooperate, a criminal complaint alleges.
Atlanta lawyer Bill Morrison, who represents Scott, said he is “investigating the allegations in the arrest complaint at this time.”
The husband, identified in the complaint as “S.M.,” was forced at gunpoint to accompany one of the robbers and withdraw money from a Wells Fargo ATM machine on Northside Parkway. The other armed assailant, identified in the complaint as being Scott, remained with the man’s wife and children to ensure his cooperation.
Once the husband returned home, the robbers told him to withdraw $15,000 during normal banking house the next day and turn the money over to them. They took his cell phone number, photographed his driver’s license and threatened to return and do more violence should he fail to pay the $15,000, the complaint said.
The warrant did not indicate whether the robbers returned the next day to retrieve the $15,000.
Before the robbers left the home, they took designer women’s shoes and handbags, cash and jewelry, including custom-made wedding rings, the complaint said.
After the initial robbery, the husband received a call on his cell phone at 2 a.m. Although he could not understand what the caller was saying before the call was disconnected, he got the phone number and provided it to police, the complaint said.
On May 31, investigators received an anonymous tip from a source who said two individuals had recently returned from a trip to Atlanta with shoes, handbags and a man’s wedding band, the complaint said. The tipster correctly identified the brand name of the shoes and handbags stolen during the robbery – details that police never released to the public, the complaint said.
The tipster told police that Scott, who lives in Memphis, was one of the individuals with the stolen goods, the complaint said. Authorities then found Scott’s cellphone number and determined his phone had been in frequent contact with the person who’d telephoned the Buckhead husband in the early morning hours after the robbery, the complaint said.
On June 24, Memphis police found a May 27 pawn shop ticket bearing Scott’s biographical information. The ticket described a pawned item as a “plain wedding band.” The Buckhead husband confirmed after viewing a photo of the pawned ring that it was his wedding band that had been taken during the May 25 robbery, the complaint said.
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