Willie McKinnon made a rookie mistake for a suspected criminal: He couldn?t keep his mouth shut.
While sexually assaulting a woman in Anne Arundel County, McKinnon, 42, of Hyattsville, “bragged” that he was setting up a robbery of a gas-station tanker, Baltimore police said.
The armed heist of a tanker truck loaded with 7,100 gallons of diesel fuel valued at $21,000 in south Baltimore on Oct. 19 raised fears of terrorism up and down the East Coast.
Police arrested McKinnon Wednesday evening after the “possible sexual assault victim” came forward, police said.
“While in his control, the suspect was heard by her calling someone by the name of ?Ali? and that he would be paid $10,000 for the load,” a Baltimore detective wrote in charging documents, which lay out the following scene:
At 3:41 a.m., McKinnon approached a Baltimore Tank Lines tractor-trailer truck in the 3100 block of Vera Street wearing a black ski mask and placed a handgun to the driver?s head.
“Head towards 95 south,” McKinnon ordered.
After driving for a short distance, the victim was able to escape the truck, but McKinnon continued south, depositing the fuel in the underground storage tanks at 3011 Martin Luther King Ave. in Southeast Washington.
The owner of that station, according to Washington land records, is Ali Kazemzadeh, who could not be reached for comment.
Detectives interviewed Kazemzadeh, who told them McKinnon attempted to sell the fuel to the cashier at his station, but was rebuffed.
“The cashier told him that he did not know anything about the fuel and had no money for the fuel,” charging documents state.
Kazemzadeh, described in the police report as “Mr. Ali,” denied all knowledge of the “how the fuel got into his tank” ? but his cell phone showed that he received several calls from McKinnon?s phones after the robbery.
The empty truck was found in Southeast Washington about eight hours after it was stolen, authorities said.
