A Santa Fe student was arrested Monday in connection with an armed robbery that took place at his apartment on Sunday.
Kyle Cornelius, 22, was invited over to an acquintance's apartment to smoke marijuana, according to the arrest report from the Gainesville Police Department.
Cornelius met the victim through a mutual friend at a party several months ago and have only met four times since, according to the report. The pair didn’t have each other's phone numbers saved and only communicated through Snapchat.
A few minutes after arriving at the apartment, Cornelius went to the front door to let in an unknown man wearing a black hoodie pulled across his face so only his eyes were showing, the report said.
The two entered and the other man quickly asked the victim what valuable items he had in his apartment, according to the report. The hooded man then pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.
The man unloaded and reloaded the clip to show that there was real bullets, the report said.
The hooded man then shouted “This isn’t worth you getting shot!” before ordering the victim to get into his bed under the covers. The victim complied out of fear, according to the report.
Cornelius and the man then went to search through belongings and continued to ask where his money and weed were, the report said. The victim eventually pointed to where he kept both items.
After Cornelius found his unspecified amount of weed and $700 in his wallet, both men stopped searching, according to the report. Cornelius also took the victim's $500 iPhone, even though he begged them not to, before leaving the apartment.
Once both men left, the victim went looking for anyone who could call the police for him, since his phone had been taken. He ran onto the elevator in his apartment building and asked a woman to borrow her phone.
Before detectives arrived, the victim looked up Cornelius’s profile on Facebook to send to the police, the report said. Officers confirmed his identity by cross referencing the Linx and DMV databases.
After verifying Cornelius’s identity, he was brought into the police station and put in a six-person lineup. Within two seconds, the victim immediately identified Cornelius as one of the robbers, according to the report.
The victims phone was found shortly after laying in the grass several blocks away from his apartment.
Cornelius was charged with armed robbery with a firearm. He is currently being held in the Alachua County Jail with bond set at $400,000. The hooded man has not yet been identified or located.
