Man sentenced in Wichita robbery of 54 iPhones, 24 Samsung cellphones

The lookout in an armed robbery case, where a Wichita cellphone store employee was zip-tied during the robbery, was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in federal prison.

Xavier Lopez, 26, of Wichita previously pleaded guilty to one count of robbery. In the plea, he admitted to being the lookout during the April robbery while 26-year-old Camarin McPherson, also of Wichita, robbed a Sprint store at 530 S. West St., according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

McPherson was sentenced last month to 13.5 years in federal prison.

The Attorney’s Office said the two robbed the store of $1,000 and 54 iPhones and 24 Samsung Galaxy phones — worth more than $60,000. The employee, who had his hands and ankle zip-tied together and left face down in a back room, used his phone to call 911 when the two left, a court document says. The employee was not injured.

A few miles away, an officer using information from the GPS pings on one of the stolen phones, spotted a man driving a Ford Explorer who “appeared to have an expression of panic on his face.”

The officer then followed the Ford, which had a stolen license plate, and noticed that the movements of the stolen GPS-enabled phone mirrored the speeds and directions of the SUV, the document says.

The officer tried to pull over the SUV but the driver took off. The chase ended a couple of miles away when the Ford wrecked at Kellogg and Meridian.

The two men ran on foot but were arrested nearby. McPherson was identified as the driver. A loaded handgun was found near where McPherson fell while running, the document says. The firearm was stolen.