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Inmate helps identify robbery suspect

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published October 6, 2005

TAMPA - Convicted armed robber Charles Labarbara has been out of prison for two years, but authorities say one of his former fellow inmates helped put him back behind bars.

Pinellas County sheriff's deputies, acting on a tip from an inmate who recognized Labarbara from surveillance footage aired Tuesday on local news stations, arrested him at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Crystal Inn Hotel on 34th Street S in St. Petersburg.

Labarbara, 47, is being held without bail in the Pinellas County jail on multiple felony charges stemming from a string of holdups that began Sept. 24 in Tampa, said Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin.

Victims of the recent incidents told police the armed robber carried a semiautomatic pistol and wore an orange shirt and a ball cap. Durkin said Pinellas deputies found among Labarbara's possessions an orange shirt, a ball cap and a toy gun that looked like a real pistol.

Authorities say surveillance from a Sept. 24 robbery at Xtreme Juice, 619 S Dale Mabry Highway, also clearly showed Labarbara's face as he held up three young Xtreme employees.

An unidentified inmate at a "nearby correctional facility" saw that footage on the news and told a supervisor he knew the man in the orange shirt, Durkin said.

"We received multiple phone calls as a result of the intense media coverage, but that was the one that gave us a name," Durkin said.

Labarbara was arrested outside the Crystal Inn, where Pinellas deputies got word he was staying. Labarbara admitted to Pinellas sheriff's and Tampa police detectives that he committed several armed robberies in Tampa Bay, Durkin said.

The arrest came several hours after the robbery of the Kash n' Karry Liquor store at 2525 N Dale Mabry Highway. There, a robber waving a pistol and wearing an orange shirt and ball cap confronted the store's manager, 36-year-old Patrick Vnuk, and demanded money from the cash register and from Vnuk's pockets.

State records show Labarbara is serving 40 years' probation for two 1992 Volusia County armed robberies, and before Wednesday's arrest was wanted by Volusia County authorities, who say he violated the terms of his probation.

He was released from state prison two years ago today, after serving 12 years of a 22-year sentence for armed robberies in Sarasota, Manatee and Volusia counties, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 6, 2005, 01:13:15]