Bond denied for theater robbery suspects

Aundrea Lee Darrel Brown

By LEE WILLIAMS
lwilliams@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayette County Magistrate Judge James White ordered Thursday that two men who allegedly robbed Tinseltown movie theater at gunpoint Tuesday will remain in custody at the Fayette County Jail without bond.

Aundrea Lee, 28, of Powder Springs, and Darrel Brown, 45, of Douglasville, are being held on four counts of armed robbery, two counts of false imprisonment, one count of kidnapping and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, police said.

White initially denied bond for Brown and set a $75,000 bond per count for Lee, but later recanted his decision after he realized he could not grant bond to suspects accused of armed robbery — one of the seven deadly sins.

He told the men's public defenders, Stacey Flynn and Joe Saia, to petition the Superior Court for a bond hearing. The date of the hearing has not been set. If no bond is granted, Brown and Lee will have a preliminary hearing July 12.

Brown and Lee are accused in a June 14 armed robbery that led to the first-ever hostage incident at the massive Pavilion shopping center.

The standoff situation impacted the theater's bottom line, as theater officials were forced to cancel their midnight premiere of "Batman Begins."

The incident included a manhunt that included over 100 law enforcement officers, police dogs and two helicopters from Fayette, Clayton, Fulton, Henry and Pike counties. The incident unfolded after one of the employees at Tinseltown tripped the panic alarm and alerted authorities early Tuesday morning.

The robbers had reportedly tied up two managers at gunpoint and seized over $1,100 cash from the 72,000 square-foot facility. But before the men could bolt with the cash, another employee tripped the panic alarm alerting Fayetteville police.

One of the hostages was identified as theater general manager Dair Bradley. Another hostage was identified as assistant manager Caitlin Williams. Employee Alton Brown also was tied up during the incident.

A third assistant manager, Lynette Montgomery, also was present during the incident and reportedly tripped the panic alarm alerting police. But details on who tripped the alarm have not been released by police.

"As soon as they made contact with the managers, they said there were two subjects with a gun that had just climbed into the ceiling," Fayetteville Police spokesman Detective Steve Crawshaw said. "One of the officers was able to grab a hold of one of the subjects' feet and he fell out of the ceiling and we were able to apprehend him."

Lee was apprehended and so was a Bryco Arms .380-caliber semi-automatic handgun, authorities said.

Brown, however, eluded authorities for another 24 hours before he was caught. An out of place poster brought Brown's disappearing act to a halt.

"They looked down in between two sections of walls and they saw some insulation and stuff and he started moving a little bit," Crawshaw said. "They gave commands. He stood up, raised his hands and gave up from there."

Brown was taken into custody without further incident, police said.