Assistant U.S. Attorney Linwood C. Wright Jr. said the convictions would not have been possible without "witnesses who are willing to come forward and victims who are willing to hang in there." He prosecuted the case with Assistant U.S. Attorney Ed Zittlau. Zittlau said four victims identified Gassew as the robber.
In the city court system, case after case collapsed after victims failed to show up to testify.
Gassew was found not guilty of one robbery charge and one gun charge. Nevertheless, a 32-year sentence is guaranteed because he was convicted under a federal gun law that requires a mandatory seven-year sentence on the first count and a mandatory 25-year sentence for each following count. Plus, there is no parole in the federal system. He is to be formally sentenced in May.
Gassew did not react to the verdict. A small group of friends and relatives was in the courtroom.
In one of the two robberies of which Gassew was convicted, he held up a 7-Eleven store on the 8000 block of Oxford Avenue and beat the store clerk with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
Police spotted Gassew within minutes of the robbery in October 2009, when he smashed a stolen truck into a tree and ran off, police said. They recovered the gun from the truck. He was shot in the arm.
When Gassew was charged in 2010, he was in a wheelchair. His head was scarred, and his right eye seemed blinded - injuries apparently suffered in an altercation with police after his shooting. Wednesday, he still appeared to be blind in one eye.
