Seven times in seven months, a masked gunman robbed the same Walgreens store in D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood, an area considered the core of the city’s downtown and a short walk from Capital One Arena, where fans from around the region flock to see the Washington Capitals and Wizards play.
The brazen holdups that started in the summer of 2023 amid a surge in crime in Chinatown and across the city further unnerved residents and raised questions about the deterioration of a once-thriving pocket of the city that is also home to the bustling Gallery Place Metro station and a cluster of José Andrés restaurants.
On Tuesday, a 28-year-old nephew of one of the store’s managers was sentenced to 10-1/2 years in prison for orchestrating what was revealed as an elaborate inside job where his uncle and another manager took turns playing victim while he and others stole nearly $29,000.
Federal prosecutors said the nephew, Gianni Robinson, pleaded guilty to robbery and gun charges in a scheme that unraveled after an armed security guard hired by the drugstore chain shot the ring’s gunman during a final robbery, in February 2024. Robinson’s uncle, one of the store’s co-managers, has been sentenced to 12 years. The gunman, Robinson’s friend, received a 16-1/2 year sentence. The other co-manager, Robinson’s girlfriend, is awaiting sentencing.
“Gianni Robinson was the operational hub of the conspiracy,” the U.S. attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro, said in a statement. “He served as the link between the two corrupt store managers who provided inside information and the masked gunman who entered the store each time to rob it at gunpoint.”
Robinson’s attorney, Ubong E. Akpan, with the federal public defender’s office, described her client as less of an organizer of a conspiracy and more as “a messenger” and “a connector” for the people involved. “He relayed messages as directed,” Akpan wrote in a lengthy sentencing memorandum filed in federal court.
Akpan declined to comment for this story. In the sentencing memo, she revealed that Robinson, who was not an employee at Walgreens, was the product of a volatile upbringing in homes shattered by drug use and abuse, and was suffering from his own drug addiction. She wrote that Robinson’s father, Richard McCoy, dealt drugs before he was killed at 19, before Robinson was born. And she wrote that Robinson’s grandfather was connected to notorious drug kingpin Rayful Edmond III, who led a crack cocaine operation in the 1980s that solidified the perception of D.C. as the nation’s murder capital.
“Since his incarceration in this case, Gianni Robinson has made great strides to improve his life and overcome his drug addiction,” Akpan wrote in the sentencing memorandum, asking the judge to impose a sentence of seven years.
The three-story Walgreens at 7th and H streets in Northwest Washington is not just a well-known storefront for visitors and Metro riders. Featuring a sign with Chinese characters that translate as “pharmacy,” the store is a neighborhood anchor. After the arrests were made, the city’s police chief at the time, Pamela A. Smith, said authorities had “dismantled a conspiracy that invoked fear in the community and repeatedly took away this community’s sense of safety.”
The first robbery occurred in July 2023, compounding fears over escalating crimes that led Chinatown residents and business leaders two weeks later to hammer police and prosecutors for solutions. During a packed community meeting, they complained of drug deals taking place under the neighborhood’s ornate Friendship Archway and having to pushing past addicts on the Metro escalators.
The residents were joined by a representative from the neighborhood’s biggest business, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns Capital One Arena and its two principal tenants, the Capitals and Wizards. Two months earlier, company representatives had met with D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D)to discuss the city funding upgrades to the 20,000-seat arena, and they had separately raised the idea of moving the professional basketball and hockey teams to Northern Virginia, though they ultimately remained in the District.
Police at the time promised to boost patrols, and prosecutors began issuing barring notices to people arrested in low-level crimes, such as drug possession, that prohibited them from returning to the area after being released from custody. Police later established a drug-free zone around the Metro station — still in place today — making it easier for police to target people congregating for the suspected purpose of buying or selling drugs.
Violent crime in Chinatown, including robberies and assaults, have dropped nearly 50 percent since the summer of 2023, according to police statistics, largely in line with crime drops across the city.
Michael D. Shankle, who chairs the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Chinatown, said in an interview Wednesday that the community has “stabilized,” in terms of crime, which he attributed to a continuing influx of police. He said the robberies at the Walgreens had “created a sense of insecurity” among residents, and the revelation that the holdups were an inside job left a sense of betrayal, with residents feeling “almost violated, themselves.”
The sentences handed down in the case, Shankle said, restore trust in the judicial system. At the meeting in 2023, residents had complained of people being arrested only to be seen back on the street the next day. He said “we are now seeing sentences that match the crime.”
Prosecutors said each of the armed robberies were carried out the same way. A masked gunman entered the store just after cash from the day’s sales had been taken to a locked manager’s office. The gunman appeared to force an employee to the office, access the code and take the money. Prosecutors said the two managers “took turns pretending to be the ‘victim’ manager on duty, knowing that the robberies would be captured on internal surveillance footage and later scrutinized by law enforcement.”
The prosecutors said it was Robinson who “helped plan the robberies from the beginning,” and provided the gunman with the access codes to get into the locked office. Robinson also “coordinated logistics including getaway arrangements and the splitting of proceeds,” prosecutors said.
Three weeks before the first robbery, text messages displayed in court documents show, Robinson discussing logistics with the gunman, asking at one point, “U got masks & gloves.” The gunman, Kamanye Williams, a felon, admonished him to stop discussing their plans in writing, after which prosecutors said Robinson directed the gunman to “two different firearm suppliers.”
In subsequent texts, Robinson appears to have given the gunman precise directions on how to rob the Walgreens. “Meet her in aisle 1 soon she got off elevator,” he writes in one message, referring to one of the managers, according to court documents. In another, Robinson writes, “Make one them open safe need book bag don’t take mask off till u in car pulling off.”
After the fifth robbery, the drugstore chain hired armed security guards. On Dec. 4, 2023, prosecutors said, the gunman disarmed one of the guards and stole his firearm, along with cash. During the seventh and final robbery, on Feb. 11, 2024, prosecutors said, one of the guards shot the gunman in the chest. The gunman survived.
The following day, prosecutors said, police searched Robinson’s home that he shared with the female co-manager and found a .45 caliber handgun and 16 rounds of ammunition.
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