By ROBIN SHANNON
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — Authorities in St. John arrested a LaPlace man accused of stealing 100 pounds of shrimp at gunpoint early Friday morning, said a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

Gerald Brown, 31, 1407 Delta Road, was booked with armed robbery Friday afternoon after the victim in the theft was able to identify him as the robber, said Capt. Dane Clement, public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office.

According to a release from the Sheriff’s Office, the victim, a 20-year-old LaPlace man, told deputies that he was attempting to sell some of the shrimp, contained in an ice chest, to two men when they robbed him of the ice chest, his wallet and a cell phone just before 3 a.m. Friday. The victim told deputies that he agreed to follow the two men to a home on Cardinal Street in LaPlace to make the sale when the robbery took place. When the victim handed over the ice chest of shrimp and his belongings, the two men fled the scene in a car.

Clement said the victim provided a license plate number from the getaway car, which connected Brown to the robbery. He said the other man involved remains at large.

Brown was booked into the Sherman Walker Correctional Facility in LaPlace, where he is being held on a $200,000 bond.

Anyone with information on the robbery, or the identity of the accomplice, should contact Det. Staty Lewis of the St. John Sheriff’s Office at 985-652-9513.