The Hammond High School student police tracked down through his MySpace Web site pleaded guilty Thursday to robbing another teenager at The Mall in Columbia.
Shortly before he was scheduled to graduate from Hammond, Raymond Dixon, 18, of Columbia, pleaded guilty to one count of armed robbery in Howard County Circuit Court.
“You understand that you took property from someone else with the threat of a deadly weapon?” Dixon?s attorney, Warren Brown, asked him.
“Yes,” Dixon said.
Howard County police said they were led to Dixon through his MySpace site. Police said Dixon robbed a 16-year-old teenage boy at The Mall on Nov. 19. The 16-year-old told police that three males approached him at The Mall at about 8:55 p.m. and asked to buy his Bathing Ape sweatshirt for $350, according to charging documents. Bathing Ape is a Japanese skatewear clothing brand. The 16-year-old and the three males went to conduct the transaction, when Dixon brandished what appeared to be a black semiautomatic weapon and robbed the teen of the sweatshirt, prosecutors said. The boy found Dixon?s profile while searching MySpace.com for people with similar clothing interests, said Assistant State?s Attorney Kim Oldham, who prosecuted Dixon. The boy printed the pictures off the Web site and gave the photos to police. A Hammond High administrator identified Dixon in the photos, Oldham said. Oldham asked Judge Richard Bernhardt to sentence Dixon to between 1 1/2 years and six years incarceration, to have no contact with the victim and to stay away from the Columbia mall. Brown said he will ask the judge to sentence Dixon to only probation because Dixon used poor judgment.
“It was more of a prank,” Brown said.
No date was been set for the sentencing.
