A 36-year-old Tallahassee man has pleaded guilty to federal charges after investigators say DNA on a torn pair of pants and ballistics from a spent shell casing linked him to a masked armed robbery at a Fred George Road convenience store earlier this year. Laquinton Montral Harris admitted to charges including Hobbs Act robbery, brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and he now faces the possibility of life in prison.
According to federal court records cited by the Tampa Free Press, a masked gunman robbed the Z Mart convenience store at 4015 Fred George Road on January 30, demanding cash from the store employee. Court records described in the U.S. Department of Justice's case materials say the gunman fired a shot into the store's wooden floor only after the clerk said he had no cash immediately available, which prompted the employee to hand over the register drawer instead.
Leon County Sheriff's Office deputies who responded to the scene recovered a spent .22 caliber shell casing near an apparent bullet strike on the wooden floor, the same day as the robbery. That physical evidence would later become central to tying Harris to the crime.
Search Warrant Turns Up Matching Rifle and Clothing
ATF agents and Leon County Sheriff's Office investigators conducted a joint investigation that led them to Harris's residence, where agents executed a federal search warrant on April 2. During that search, agents recovered a .22 caliber rifle along with distinctive ripped pants and gloves that matched the attire worn by the robber in surveillance footage, which had shown the suspect dressed entirely in black with a face covering.
Ballistic testing matched the .22 caliber rifle seized from Harris's home to the shell casing found inside the Z Mart, per the case record. DNA testing separately confirmed that Harris's DNA was present on the ripped pants and gloves ATF agents seized from his residence, closing the evidentiary loop between the physical scene and the suspect.
Harris was initially charged via a federal criminal complaint in April and made his first court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin A. Fitzpatrick in Tallahassee. A federal grand jury formally indicted him on May 8, and Chief U.S. District Judge Allen C. Winsor had originally set a jury trial date for June 23 before Harris instead reached a plea agreement.
What Harris Is Facing at Sentencing
Harris now faces up to life imprisonment, maximum fines reaching $750,000, and up to five years of supervised release, according to the case record. He is scheduled to be sentenced on October 19 at 2 p.m. at the U.S. Courthouse in Tallahassee, with Judge Winsor presiding.
The firearm brandishing charge alone carries a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in prison, and that sentence must run consecutively to whatever punishment is imposed for the underlying robbery charge. Under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), the U.S. Department of Justice notes that federal judges are statutorily barred from running that firearm enhancement concurrently with the predicate offense. The Hobbs Act robbery charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1951 separately carries a statutory maximum of up to 20 years in federal prison per count, while the felon-in-possession charge under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) carries a maximum of up to 15 years, reflecting the federal government's lifetime ban on firearm possession for people with prior felony convictions.
John P. Heekin, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, said the case reflects strong coordination between agencies. James A. McCain is the prosecuting assistant U.S. attorney, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also assisted in the joint investigation alongside the ATF and the Leon County Sheriff's Office.
Case Fits Into Broader Federal Push on Violent Crime
The prosecution falls under federal violent crime initiatives such as Operation Take Back America and Project Safe Neighborhoods, which the U.S. Department of Justice uses to pursue armed robbery and illegal firearm cases across the Northern District of Florida's 23 counties. Locally, the case comes as violent crime in Tallahassee dropped by nearly 9% in 2025 amid targeted multi-agency law enforcement operations, according to WTXL Tallahassee.
Much of that coordination flows through the Capital Region Real Time Crime Center, a multi-agency intelligence hub that the Leon County Sheriff's Office and Tallahassee Police Department use to share data and support joint investigations, according to a report from FSU's College of Criminology & Criminal Justice. The sheriff's office also launched a second Anatomy of a Homicide research project last year, examining local gun violence patterns from 2021 through late 2025 to help guide crime reduction strategies, as reported by WFSU News.
