Raj Patel and Danny Curtis staged this robbery at a Shell gas station in Duluth, Georgia, say police. (Images: Duluth Police Department)
A pair of Georgia gas station store employees are accused of staging an armed robbery in which one of them acted like an anonymous robber and pretended to punch the other in the face. Police say that Danny Curtis, 59, is seen on in-store surveillance footage wearing a hood and grabbing cash as Raj Patel laid face down, sprawled out on the floor.
Footage viewed by Law&Crime from a Shell gas station in Duluth shows two separate incidents happening minutes apart. In the first incident at approximately 11:45 p.m. on Jan. 20, Patel is behind the register when a man in a hoodie accosts him and appears to jab a fist at him. It is unclear if the robbery suspect’s fist even connected with Patel’s face, but Patel immediately dropped to the floor. The robbery suspect left. Then a woman, identified in documents as a co-worker, found Patel, who remained on the floor for a bit before getting up.
A second apparent robbery happened minutes later, at 12:05 a.m. on Jan. 21. This time, Patel gave the robbery suspect space, holding his hands up, as the man picked through the register.
The police response
Police responded at 12:11 a.m. to an armed robbery call at the Shell gas station, documents said.
“I walked over to the counter and saw the clerk, later identified as Mr. Raj J. Patel, sitting in a chair behind the counter, shaking uncontrollably,” documents said. “I asked him what happened, and he stated an unknown male came in wearing all black with his face completely covered and holding a knife in his hand. The suspect grabbed the gold chain that Mr. Patel was wearing, pulled it off his neck, and then struck him in the face, in the mouth and nose area, causing Mr. Patel to fall to the ground and lose consciousness.”
Patel allegedly claimed that when he woke up, the same suspect or a different person returned and took an estimated $5,000 from a cash register.
“He stated the suspect only took bigger bills and left the small ones before leaving again through the door on the side of the business behind the counter,” police wrote. “I asked him if he or any employees had gone out this door since the armed robbery, and he stated no. I went out the side door and heard some noise from the dumpster area.”
The officer drew his gun and encountered Curtis, who was wearing a gray hoodie, documents said. Pointing his gun at the man, the officer gave commands to show hands, but Patel told him Curtis works there.
Curtis allegedly claimed not see anything regarding the robbery.
The robbery suspect changed clothes
“We received video footage of the front of the store showing the unknown suspect leaving out the side door, going to the dumpster, going back inside the store wearing different clothing items, and then exiting the store again, returning to the dumpster,” officials wrote. “The suspect then changed clothes and came out from the dumpster, and when officers were pulling up, the suspect walked back inside the dumpster area. The final encounter with anyone in the dumpster area was when I found Danny Curtis working. Danny Curtis was also detained and handcuffed to the rear, checking for fit and double lock inside the store later during the investigation. When officers asked for the dumpster key, he pulled it out of his pocket, and dollar bills fell out.”
Police released Curtis, however, when Patel was adamant that Curtis did not carry out the robbery, documents said. Cops at the time said they could not immediately see surveillance footage inside the store.
In police interview footage viewed by Law&Crime, an investigator told Curtis at the station that they were going to arrest him. As seen on video, Curtis confessed to being behind the robbery — he claimed that Patel had recruited him to carry it out.
“I don’t know why you did this to begin with,” the investigating officer said after this story, voicing shock that Curtis would go through with this.
During questioning, Curtis said he threw away the knife and the stolen cash. He was also emphatic that the female co-worker had nothing to do with the plot.
“It’s still a little weird to me you didn’t keep the money,” the investigator said, sounding skeptical and later saying he did not believe him.
Attempting to explain that, Curtis described himself as being scared during the incident.
Regarding the surveillance footage featuring Patel and the robbery suspect inside the store, the investigator told him he could tell it was an act.
“I know it was staged. It looked fake,” said the investigator, describing the footage as “very comical” and “funny.”
Asked about why he performed the robbery twice, Curtis said that Patel told him he did it wrong the first time.
“It’s just a lot of bull—-,” Curtis said.
He remains at the Gwinnett County Jail for theft by taking and conspiracy to commit a felony, records show. Patel faces a count of false statements or writings, and also an active warrant for conspiracy to commit a felony, Duluth police spokesman Corporal Ted Sadowski told Law&Crime.
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