Crime & Safety

Three Men Charged in Armed Robbery of CiCi's Pizza on New Year's Eve

One suspect was also charged with robbing the same restaurant eight months earlier, while he worked there, police said.

Arrest warrants were issued today for three men accused of the robbery of in Plainfield.

One of them, 22-year-old Corey M. Paytes, of 64 Eastfield Road, Montgomery, also confessed to , when he was an employee there, Plainfield Sgt. Mike Fisher said.

Paytes was charged with aggravated robbery and theft and given a bond of $1 million. His accomplices were Travis J. Gamble, 22, 14 Fox Run Drive, Newark, who was charged with aggravated robbery, and Josiah C. McCroskey, 22, 5824 Lenox Road, Lisle, who was charged with theft.

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Gamble's bond is $1 million and McCroskey's is $100,000.

The three are believed to have been involved in multiple pizza restaurant robberies at the end of last year and in early January, including cases in St. Charles, Lisle, Yorkville and Naperville.

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Fisher said the joined forces with other area police agencies to form a special taskforce charged with catching the suspects. That work included many stakeouts of pizza restaurants until they got their break on Jan. 16, when task force members caught Paytes and Gamble as they robbed a Naperville Papa John's store, he said.

It was Paytes and Gamble who implicated McCroskey for his role in the crimes, Fisher said.

The three men are being held in the DuPage County jail, where their Will County warrants will be served. It's likely they'll also be charged with robberies that occurred in other towns, Fisher said.

The New Year's Eve robbery took place shortly after midnight. Two armed men wearing black clothing and ski masks entered the store and forced the lone employee to the floor as they emptied the safe. They then locked the employee in a freezer and fled, according to reports.

In the April 2011 case, two men wearing black hooded jackets and red bandanas across their faces contronted an employee as he was locking up for the night and stole a bank deposit envelop containing $2,000 in cash, reports said.


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