Armed men ambush couple returning from family event and rob them in Virginia, feds say
A Virginia couple came home from a family event and were ambushed by armed men, who federal prosecutors said stalked them for weeks and planned to “rob and kidnap them when they were least suspecting.”
Robbie Terrell Clark, Tyree McCombs and their co-conspirators waited nearly four hours at the couple’s apartment building in Alexandria, before robbing them at gunpoint inside their parking garage, prosecutors wrote in documents ahead of Clark’s sentencing on Jan. 24.
Alexandria is about a 10-mile drive south from Washington, D.C.
They had just returned home from a family gathering in Maryland as the men surprised them, stealing two of their Audemars Piguet watches valued at $120,000, and$63,500 worth of jewelry and clothes, as well as the keys to one of their Mercedes in September 2022, according to prosecutors.
“They were waving guns in our face, then they started to grab our possessions off us – our jewelry, my purse, our keys, my boyfriend’s phone and took my boyfriend’s shoes off his feet,” the Virginia woman wrote in a victim impact statement, court documents show.
“I remember so vividly and really wish I didn’t”, she said.
The men then pistol-whipped the couple and walked them to one of their apartments, where they raided the home and demanded money at gunpoint, prosecutors said.
A security alarm eventually went off and the men fled without any money, according to prosecutors.
Now, a federal judge has sentenced Clark, 27, of Washington, D.C. to nine years in prison for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a Jan. 24 news release.
Clark pleaded guilty to the charge on May 21, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
McCombs awaits sentencing, prosecutors said.
Clark and McCombs’ attorneys didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from McClatchy News on Jan. 27.
Blood stains, zip ties found at crime scene
After planning the robbery, prosecutors said Clark, McCombs and others, who weren’t identified, traveled from Washington D.C. to Virginia to ambush the couple on Sept. 3, 2022, according to prosecutors.
The day before, they hid a GPS tracking device on one of their Mercedes, prosecutors said.
The men arrived at the couple’s apartment building wearing dark clothes, masks and latex gloves — and brought guns and zip ties, according to prosecutors.
In her victim impact statement, the woman recalled how, after her and her boyfriend were ambushed and robbed in their parking garage, she was hit in the face with a gun, according to court documents.
“I saw blood and could no longer see out of my left eye. My boyfriend yelling ‘please don’t hurt her’ while one or two of the guys telling us that ‘they will kill us,’” a sentencing memorandum says.
She then recalled “‘two guys pointing guns at my boyfriend’s head’ and ‘two guys holding my arms one pointing a gun at my head and the other in my back,’” according to the sentencing memorandum.
She wrote that they told her to walk to her apartment. In an image captured by surveillance footage, the men are seen leading the woman at gunpoint through a parking garage hallway.
Inside the apartment, she watched as one of the men pistol-whipped her boyfriend in the head before she was “assaulted again,” the sentencing memorandum says.
After they demanded money, they pistol whipped her another time “‘so hard that (she) was flung onto (her) bed” and “felt (her) whole face go numb,’” she wrote in her statement, according to the sentencing memorandum.
The couple were left injured and bleeding after the men left when the security alarm was triggered, the sentencing memorandum says.
An image from the crime scene shows blood stains, a zip tie and an alarm on the floor of the apartment.
Prosecutors said the men left several zip ties behind.
The investigation
Clark, McCombs and the co-conspirators fled the couple’s apartment in their Mercedes and another stolen car, which they used to travel to their home, prosecutors said.
A few hours later, authorities found the Mercedes in Maryland, according to prosecutors.
“Following a lengthy investigation, Clark was identified as a participant and arrested on August 16, 2023, in Washington, D.C.,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “He has been held since.”
Ahead of sentencing, Clark’s attorney Stephen F. Brennwald wrote in a court filing that he never pistol-whipped or assaulted the couple inside their apartment.
They argued that McCombs was the only one involved in stalking the couple before the robbery.
McCombs pleaded guilty on Aug. 14 to conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce by robbery in connection with the case, and to an unrelated offense in connection with a kidnapping that happened two months afterward, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
A date for McCombs’ sentencing hearing wasn’t listed in court records.
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