'Spiderman Crew' Leader Gets 33 Years for Armed Robbery

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DETROIT, MI – The leader of a robbery ring known as the “Spiderman Crew” because of the distinctive clothing they wore was sentenced to 33 years in federal prison for his role in a string of fast-food robberies, including at two at Little Caesars Pizza restaurants in Oak Park and Dearborn in March 2008.

Elan Andrews, 29, of Detroit, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen in Detroit, who earlier had accepted Andrews’ guilty plea on armed robbery and firearms offenses.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said in a statement that the long prison sentence sends a strong message. “We hope that violent offenders will take note of this type of sentence and put down their guns,” McQuade said in a statement.

Fast-food restaurants in several other Metro Detroit communities were robbed during the period two-week period in 2008, including businesses in Ferndale, Birmingham, Redford and elsewhere in Oak Park.

According to court records, Andrews was the leader of a several person robbery crew that committed armed robberies of Little Caesar’s fast food stores in Oak Park and Dearborn in March of 2008. Andrews and his accomplices would enter the restaurant wearing hoodies, display a firearm, and demand the contents of the cash register and safe before fleeing to a waiting vehicle with an occupant inside, the government said.

The hoodies worn during the robberies were unique in that one had a skeletal-like design on the chest area and the other had a web-like design on its chest area, and as a result, law enforcement dubbed them the group the "Spiderman Crew," according to court records.

Additionally, McQquade said, the hood of each hoodie zipped from the back portion of the hood all the way down below the front chest portion, and once zipped, had a built in mask that enclosed and hid the wearer's face behind a built-in dark mesh material.

Andrews, and other members of the crew, were apprehended as a result of a task force comprised of officers from the Detroit Police Department and several suburban law enforcement agencies to stop the fast-food restaurant crime spree.

Andrews’ co-defendants were previously sentenced. They included Jamal Muhammad, 9½ years; Anthony Sampson, 6 years;and Elisha Whitehead, 15 years.