The office of Cobb District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes reports that an Atlanta man involved in a multi-state crime spree has been convicted for the robbery of an Austell CVS. The Cobb County Police Department had identified the suspect by a tracking device placed on the suspect’s vehicle by federal authorities after a string of robberies in Florida.

The defendant, Roscoe Pugh, now 31, was convicted Friday morning in the courtroom of Cobb Superior Court Chief Judge Reuben Green. Green sentenced Pugh to 40 years, with 20 years to serve in prison and the rest of the sentence on probation.

Pugh also faces federal charges for the string of Florida robberies.

One of his alleged accomplices Jared David Jackson, 31, of Conyers, remains charged in the case. The third alleged accomplice has not been identified.

The press release describes the arrest and investigation as follows:

About 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 15, 2015, three males wearing masks and gloves entered the CVS store. The men, two of whom were armed, forced the two employees onto the ground, then stole cash drawers out of the registers. They also took the purse of a female employee. As they fled the store, a female customer was entering the store, and a gun was pointed at her, but the trio then fled.

Cobb Police detectives learned that federal law-enforcement officers were investigating five earlier robberies of Walgreens stores in Florida in which cash drawers were taken by armed, masked men, and those officers had placed a GPS tracker on their suspects’ vehicle – the same vehicle that was used in the Austell case. That vehicle was registered to the mother of Roscoe Pugh. Federal agents in Atlanta executed a search warrant on Pugh’s home, where evidence they recovered included the purse taken from the Austell employee. 

“The evidence is overwhelming that this defendant is a dangerous criminal, and I am relieved the jurors agreed,” said Assistant District Attorney Rachel Hines, who prosecuted the case along with Senior ADA Shepard Orlow.