By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE — Authorities arrested a Reserve man after he admitted he held up a Reserve convenience store with a plastic toy handgun, said a spokesman for the St. John Sheriff’s Office.

Maj. Mike Tregre, public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office, said Damion A. Dennis, 19, 248 Chad B. Baker St., Reserve, was taken into custody Friday afternoon at the same convenience store he allegedly robbed two days before. Tregre said the cashier behind the counter recognized Dennis as the gunman from the robbery.

According to a Sheriff’s Office report, a cashier at Moe’s Convenience Store, 3357 W. Airline Hwy., was held up at gunpoint this past Wednesday by a man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants and dark sunglasses. The suspect then fled on foot with an undetermined amount of cash.

Tregre said when Dennis, who is a regular customer of the store, returned to the store Friday, the cashier contacted police and said he may have been the robber. Deputies arrived and arrested Dennis inside the store.

During questioning with Sheriff’s investigators, Dennis confessed to the robbery and said he held up the store with a fake plastic gun. Authorities have yet to recover the toy gun or the cash taken from the store.

Dennis was booked into the Sherman Walker Correctional Facility on felony armed robbery charges. He is being held in lieu of a $50,000 bond.