Convicted drug dealer charged as one-man armed robbery spree along Blue Hill Avenue

Seven months after his release from a 15-year federal sentence for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, Imauri Ivery began repeatedly robbing several stores along Blue Hill Avenue within a short run of his Elm Hill Park home, Suffolk County prosecutors said today.

A Suffolk County grand jury yesterday indicted Ivery, 38, on 20 counts of armed robbery, 4 counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, 2 counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, 2 counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, 2 counts of carrying a loaded firearm and 1 count of armed assault with intent to rob, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports, adding that if convicted, he faces stiffer penalties as a career criminal.

In addition to the successful holdups at four Blue Hill Avenue, Ivery tried but failed to hold up the South Street Diner on Kneeland Street near South Station, the DA's office says.

Ivery, who already had several drug convictions on his record, was arrested in 2002 in Chinatown and found in possession of a gun. He was turned over to the feds. The next year, he pleaded guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

He won his release in January, 2016, seven months before he began robbing stores to which he could walk from home, the DA's office reports. He has been in custody since his arraignment in April on gun charges related to the semi-automatic pistol police say they found in his home during a search related to the investigation of the sudden spurt of robberies along Blue Hill Avenue.

According to the DA's office:

The first of the Blue Hill Avenue robberies targeted a convenience store on August 31, 2016, where an assailant carrying two firearms stole from the register and took an employee’s cell phone and a customer’s wallet.

On Sept. 24, 2016, the same man carried two firearms as he robbed a Blue Hill Avenue market and assaulted and robbed a customer; he again displayed two firearms when he struck the market in a second armed robbery Nov. 18.

In the early morning hours of Oct. 4, 2016, the assailant pointed two guns at a customer of Kneeland Street diner but fled without taking any of the victim’s belongings. The suspect wore a distinctive jacket and two-toned sneakers during the robbery that were later recovered from Ivery’s closet during the execution of a search warrant. Images captured by surveillance cameras in the area depict a silver vehicle that RMV records link to a relative of Ivery, prosecutors said.

A Blue Hill Avenue restaurant, its employees, and customers were robbed Oct. 11, 2016, by a man carrying two guns and who discharged a firearm into the air as an employee followed him from the location. The suspect was wearing the same distinctive clothing worn during the Oct. 4 robbery. He wore the same clothing when he robbed the same restaurant Oct. 27, 2016, and again on Jan. 1.

Surveillance cameras show the man once again wearing the same jacket and shoes as he robbed another market on Blue Hill Avenue on Dec. 22 and again Jan. 28. He fired a gun as the victims pursued him while he fled the second robbery.

In several of the incidents, the assailant was observed fleeing the robberies in the same direction as Ivery’s Elm Hill Park residence. Shell casings recovered along the assailant’s path of flight following the Oct. 11 and Jan. 28 robberies were found to be .380 caliber ammunition; a .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol was recovered during the execution of a search warrant at Ivery’s home in February, prosecutors said.

Innocent, etc.