Man found guilty of robbing a pizza-delivery guy
The Smithfield man accused of robbing a pizza-delivery driver earlier this year was found guilty on three of the four charges filed against him.
After nearly two hours of deliberation on Wednesday, a Fayette County jury found Kenneth Raymond Moore Jr., 18, guilty of robbery, theft and simple assault, but not guilty on the charge of reckless endangerment.
Deliver driver David Campbell testified during the first day of Moore’s trial that before he left Fox’s to deliver a pizza to the parking lot of the Rails to Trails Pizza in Smithfield, he called the number on the business’s caller ID to confirm when he would arrive.
Campbell testified the man who answered told him they were leaving a store and will meet him in the parking lot. When Campbell arrived, no other vehicle was there as the business was closed for the day so he waited. He said a man knocked on his window, and he saw a man walking toward him holding a small gun and wearing a black hoodie and sunglasses in the lot.
The man with the gun stole Campbell’s cash, the money bag from inside the delivery vehicle, Campbell’s cell phone and car keys.
After he was robbed, Campbell testified, he went to the nearest house to call for help.
A co-worker at Fox’s, Marissa Sharpp, looked up the phone number from the caller ID on Facebook and found Moore’s Facebook page, according to testimony. Campbell looked at a photo on the page and told police Moore looked like the man who robbed him.
“They went straight to Kenny Moore because of a Facebook photo,” said Moore’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Michael Garofalo, contended in his closing argument.
Garofalo pointed out that the Facebook post used to confirm Moore’s phone number was from 2014, and police didn’t use a photo lineup for Campbell to positively identify Moore.
The gun and the stolen items were never recovered and Moore’s accomplice was never identified.
“They (the prosecution) haven’t proven to you he was the one who was there,” Garofalo said.
Assistant District Attorney Wendy O’Brien said in her closing argument that the case against Moore had both direct and circumstantial evidence.
O’Brien said Campbell was an eye witness to the robbery and positively identified Moore in a Facebook posts that showed photos of him wearing sunglasses and a black hooded sweatshirt.
She said police didn’t know of the Facebook photo until after Campbell saw it.
O’Brien added that prosecutors would have liked to receive more direct evidence like finger prints, a positive identification from a photo lineup, any of the stolen items or the gun.
“We can’t always get the direct evidence we want,” O’Brien said.
The jurors also weighed the issue of credibility from witness testimony that included Moore himself as he testified that his cellphone number was shut off and changed in December. Moore’s foster father, however, testified he used that number to get in contact with Moore days before the robbery.
Moore remains lodged in the Fayette County Prison.
Judge Steve P. Leskinen said Moore will be sentenced sometime early next week.