7-Eleven suspect claims innocence in jail call

In a phone call from jail, a Waynesboro man said Friday that authorities wrongly charged him with firing a gun at a car with women and children inside last month at the Fishersville 7-Eleven.

Arthur Thomas Allen, 28, said the 11 charges against him, including attempted murder, stem from a shooting of which he had no knowledge.

Tailed by a history of more than a dozen years in and out of jail, Allen frequently aided police in exchange for reduced sentences and pleaded his case to a judge in hand-written letters, The News Virginian found in an investigation in the wake of the 7-Eleven charges.

The shooting took place after prosecutors cut Allen a deal on probation violation charges in exchange for his help in a drug sting. Prosecutors dropped all charges in the cases Allen worked because he “fell apart” under questioning, police said.

Allen said Investigator A.C. Powers, of the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office, approached him in jail earlier this week to dangle the possibility of leniency in exchange for cooperation.

Powers said he and another detective asked Allen about stolen guns linked to larceny and break-in charges Allen faces. The investigator and Augusta County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lee Ervin said promises of leniency were not offered.

“What we always tell them is their cooperation would be taken into consideration by the prosecutor,” Powers said. “No promises. That’s always the way we word that.”

Ervin said the possibility of leniency in exchange for cooperation is a common tactic used in interrogations.

“If we have a plea agreement, it has to be in writing,” he said. “I can tell you I have not made any agreements with this man.”

Allen said he was about to step into the shower at Briarwood Apartments last month in Fishersville, near the 7-Eleven off U.S. 250, when a friend burst through the door to tell him she heard gunshots.

“She said, ‘Somebody’s out there shooting,’ ” Allen said. “I just went ahead and got in the shower and didn’t pay any attention to it.”

Sheriff’s deputies arrived a short time later. Powers questioned Allen but the investigator said he lacked the evidence to make an arrest that night.

By the time authorities filed the attempted murder charge several days later, Allen was gone.

He said he left the state in fear of his life.

According to Allen, letters he wrote to judges along with court records and his work as a confidential informant for Waynesboro police in 2008 put him in danger.

When he was released from jail in February, animosity still ran high, he said. Allen was shot in the foot April 17 on North Commerce Avenue by a person he said he knew. Waynesboro police said they had a hunch, too, but never made an arrest because Allen didn’t cooperate.

Allen said he never showed up to point out the shooter in a suspect lineup because giving up his assailant would endanger him further.

“The only thing that’s gonna happen is the thing that happened in the first place,” Allen said. “And where was I gonna go? They know I’m from Nelson County, and it’s only 20 miles away.”

After the 7-Eleven shooting May 7, Allen said he noticed people hanging around his apartment, which prompted him to call a friend in Arizona.

“I was just thinkin’, ‘I gotta get away from here,’ ” he said. “I figured they was trying to do something to me.”

Arizona police arrested Allen two weeks later after he jumped out of a three-story building in an attempt to elude them, authorities said.

Authorities list Allen as a suspect in armed robberies in Winslow and Flagstaff. Allen said he knows nothing about those crimes.

“The car I was in, the license plate was seen close to an attempted robbery,” he said.

Arizona authorities have not charged Allen.

His sister, Helen Allen, of Fishersville, said she believes her brother is innocent in the 7-Eleven shooting.

“I know my brother wasn’t doing any shooting because he had just gotten back from Nelson County,” she said.

Helen Allen said she never developed a close childhood relationship with her brother because he was always “locked up.”

In recent years, they’ve grown close through letters and spending time with family, she said.

“It gets difficult when he gets locked up,” Helen Allen said, “But then once he comes home, it’s different. He’ll say he’s changed.”

Her brother’s arrest history includes sexual assaults, thefts, public intoxication and drug possession.

He also faces four firearm charges, four counts of shooting at an occupied vehicle and single counts of grand larceny, breaking and entering and probation violations.

He said he’s caught in a complex criss-cross of problems, many of which tie back to his work as an informant.

“I mean, there’s a whole lot more to the story than what everybody thinks it is,” he said. “But I know I wasn’t trying to shoot at nobody. I have
witnesses.”