SIMI VALLEY : Carpet Layer Held in Pizzeria Robberies

A would-be premed student suspected in a series of Simi Valley pizzeria robberies was arrested after police found him lurking outside a Pizza Hut with a stainless steel .38-caliber pistol, police said Tuesday.

Michael Lee, a part-time carpet layer who told police that he hoped to study medicine at Mission College, was booked at Ventura County Jail, Simi Valley Police Detective Tom Marshall said. Lee was being held in lieu of $20,000 bail, awaiting arraignment on seven counts of armed robbery and one count of carrying a concealed weapon, authorities said.

Two Simi Valley patrolmen arrested Lee, 28, of Simi Valley about 8 a.m. Monday. They had spotted him hiding behind a large electrical box outside the Pizza Hut restaurant on Los Angeles Avenue, Marshall said.

Lee fled briefly, jumping over a wall and dropping a gun into a trash dumpster, but police caught him and found the weapon, Marshall said.

Marshall said Lee matches the description of a man believed responsible for robbing seven Simi Valley pizzerias at gunpoint since February, 1992. That suspect was an Asian American who spoke unaccented English and wore a ski mask, latex gloves and sunglasses and carried a stainless-steel pistol, similar to what Lee had when he was arrested.

In the other robberies, Marshall said, the gunman, pointing a four-inch, .357-magnum pistol, ordered pizzeria employees leaving at closing time to walk back into the restaurant.

“He’d order them down on the ground and order them to crawl around on hands and knees to the safe,” Marshall said. “If there was a walk-in freezer or a bathroom, he’d put them in there and tell them to wait about 15 to 30 minutes and not to come out or he’d kill them.”

The robber then waited long enough for a timing device attached to the restaurants’ safes to expire, allowing him to open them using the combination he had obtained from employees, Marshall said. He made off with $6,500 in the robberies, Marshall said.

Police believe that Lee committed those robberies although he was carrying a smaller gun and was waiting outside a pizzeria before it opened rather than when it closed, Marshall said.

Police are also investigating Lee in connection with four robberies in the western San Fernando Valley around December, 1991, and two pizzeria robberies in the Newbury Park area, Marshall said.