DETROIT – A sixth participant, the alleged ringleader, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to murder charges in the December 2001 armed robbery and shooting of a cash carrier replenishing an ATM outside of Dearborn FCU, now DFCU Financial.
Norman Duncan’s plea came just hours after jury selection got under way and after federal prosecutors declined to pursue the death penalty in the case, in which $204,000 of credit union cash was stolen and Norman Stephens, a 30-year-old father of six, was shot to death.
The group, most of them part of an African-American motorcycle gang, also was responsible for an armed robbery of $190,000 from a cash carrier at Primerica Bank, according to prosecutors.
The government opted not to pursue the death penalty against Duncan, who planned the credit union heist, after an accomplice, Timothy O'Reilly, was spared a death sentence in August 2010 when a jury could not agree on who fired the fatal shot. The jury convicted O’Reilly of murder, and he was sentenced to mandatory life in prison.
In court, Duncan said he wanted to cut a deal for a long time, but the government never offered him one that did not involve cooperation. Duncan’s five co-defendants were all convicted – some having testified against each other.
Duncan could get 35 to 40 years in prison under the terms of his plea deal. He will be sentenced May 22.
The other co-defendants are: Kevin Watson, 41, of Detroit, who was convicted by a jury in November and faces mandatory life in prison; Earl Johnson Jr., 43, of Detroit, who was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison; Archie Broom, 43, and Khayyam Wilson, 38, who both pleaded guilty to bank robbery.
O'Reilly was the first person tried under the federal death penalty statute in eastern Michigan since 2003.
