Key West armed robber gets life

Omar Ricardo Brown got a second chance at beating an armed robbery charge for knocking over a Key West jewelry store in a heist that cleared more than $160,000 worth of merchandise for two criminals.

But his attorney, Chris Bridger, couldn’t stop Monroe County Judge Wayne Miller from finding him guilty Thursday nor immediately sentencing Brown to life without the possibility of parole, given his criminal record.

Nearly a decade ago, Brown turned down a plea bargain from prosecutors to serve six years rather than face trial. He chose to take his chances in court. Laquenton Cade, 39, of Key West, is serving time for the same robbery.

This time, Brown, 38, opted for a trial by judge rather than face a jury as he did in 2010, when he was convicted and faced a life sentence for being what Florida calls a prison release re-offender, one who commits a violent felony within three years of leaving prison.

Brown had two prior cocaine dealing convictions from Monroe County and did nearly two years starting in July 1998 and then served a little over nine months for another cocaine case, leaving prison Feb. 4, 2005.

At midday on Sept. 2, 2006, Brown robbed at gunpoint the now-closed Beachcomber Jewelers in the Overseas Market shopping center off North Roosevelt Boulevard, a jury and now a judge have found.

Two masked men stormed into the store. One forced the two employees, both women, to lie on the floor behind the cash register and sat on top of them with a gun making threats while the other smashed cases to collect the jewelry, prosecutors said.

One of the women was forced to give up the rings from her fingers and her watch. She returned to testify against Brown this week at the Monroe County Courthouse. She quit the jewelry store job she had had for some 18 years after the robbery.

While Brown had a new crack at winning his freedom this week, prosecutors Marisa Faraldo Tedesco and Manny Madruga with the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office could not present evidence police collected due to an appellate court decision that declared the Key West police’s search of Brown’s home was unconstitutional.

In 2014, the Third District Court of Appeal declared Key West police officers illegally searched Brown’s home after the robbery, where the items were found. The decision reversed Brown’s original conviction and forced prosecutors to start from scratch. That also meant presenting no gun, stolen jewelry, gloves and mask.

Circumstantial evidence, including a pawn-shop receipt with Brown’s signature, showed Brown was involved in the armed robbery whether or not he held the gun on the employees, prosecutors said.

This story was originally published July 30, 2016 at 8:59 AM with the headline "Key West armed robber gets life."