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Accused robber pleads guilty to weapons charge

A Durham man pleaded guilty Monday to a federal firearms charge in a string of armed robberies last summer.

Posted Updated
Keith Webster, DOB 4/15/86
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Durham man pleaded guilty Monday to a federal firearms charge in a string of armed robberies last summer.

Keith Robert Webster, 23, of 516 Burlington St., pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered sawed-off shotgun. He will be sentenced in March.

Webster also faces several state charges in connection with a July robbery spree.

Two men were robbed on East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill on July 20 by a man armed with a shotgun. Two days later, customers were robbed by a shotgun-toting man at an RBC Bank automated teller machine on Willow Drive in Chapel Hill, a Wachovia Bank ATM at 3959 New Bern Ave. in Raleigh and at a car wash across the street from the Wachovia.

The July 22 spree ended with an attempted robbery at the Bank of America ATM at 321 Oberlin Road in Raleigh.

Webster was arrested a short time later near the North Carolina State Fairgrounds after police matched the license number of the car he was driving to the vehicle used in the RBC Bank ATM robbery.

“This defendant went on a one-day crime spree that jeopardized the safety and security of several businesses and a number of our fellow citizens," U.S. Attorney George Holding said in a statement. "This prosecution is another success in our Project Safe Neighborhoods Program.”

Project Safe Neighborhoods encourages federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to cooperate in gun crimes cases.

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