Feds say after man robbed somebody of new Puma sneakers at Downtown Crossing, he took the Orange Line down to Jackson Square to hold up a phone store at gunpoint

Update: Sentenced to five years in federal prison.

A Cambridge man who was arrested in March by Boston and Cambridge police for robbing the JP Wireless store, 319 Centre St. in Jamaica Plain, was charged again today, this time by the FBI after he was charged with violating the federal Hobbs Act for interfering with interstate commerce through threats or violence.

The new charge against Royal Benjamin, 63, represents the second time in less than a month that the feds have swooped in on somebody for holding up a Centre Street phone store. In March, federal agents had teamed up with Boston, Cambridge and Transit Police to investigate a series of phone-store robberies in the Boston area.

According to an affidavit by an FBI agent on the case, Benjamin entered the JP Wireless store shortly after 7 p.m. on March 20 with a brown paper bag marked with a Puma logo and containing two new pairs of Puma sneakers, which he tried to sell to the clerk - who was busy closing up the store for the night and who declined to buy the sneakers.

Benjamin then began to walk out of the store, but at the door:

He removed what later was identified by investigators as a black, revolver-style firearm from his waist band and rushed behind the counter. In doing so, ROBBER 1 broke the door behind the counter that stated, "employees only." ROBBER 1 then approached the register and took approximately $594.00 in U.S. currency that was sitting on top of the register. 1 ROBBER 1 then opened the cash register drawer, and with his bare hands removed the drawer. He dropped the drawer and its contents on the ground. ROBBER 1 left the drawer on the ground and fled the store, threatening to harm and shoot the Victim Employee as he did so.

Why was Benjamin walking around with two pairs of new Puma sneakers? The affidavit states that Transit Police had received a report that around 6:20 p.m., somebody was robbed of their two new pairs of Puma sneakers at the Downtown Crossing T stop:

MBTA police reviewed surveillance footage from March 20, 2023, and identified an individual in the Downtown Crossing station who was carrying a Puma bag following the reported unarmed robbery.

On March 25, Boston detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Benjamin - in part based on a matching fingerprint found on the cash register. On March 27, the affidavit continues, investigators obtained consent from his sister, in whose Cambridge home he was staying, to search his room - where they found clothing matching that worn by the sneaker and phone-store robber as well as a duffel bag containing "a revolver loaded with seven rounds of ammunition."

Benjamin, who has a long record that includes manslaughter and armed and unarmed robbery, now faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted of interference with commerce by threats or violence.

In 2010, he was sentenced to 10 to 12 years in state prison for robbing what was then a Mt. Washington Bank branch next to the Curley School.

Innocent, etc.