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Authorities: Shot Garfield Robber Held Up Same Elmwood Park Store Twice

ELMWOOD PARK, N.J. -- Two armed robberies of an Elmwood Park convenience store in less than a week were committed by a Hasbrouck Heights sex offender shot in the groin by a retired NYPD detective during a Garfield tobacco store holdup, authorities have charged.

INSET: Louis Pizzi

INSET: Louis Pizzi

Photo Credit: SURVEILLANCE PHOTO: Courtesy ELMWOOD PARK PD / MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR

Louis Pizzi, 27, was transferred Friday from Hackensack University Medical Center to the Bergen County Jail, where he remained held on $750,000 combined bail.

He's charged with one count of robbery by Garfield police and two counts of robbery by Elmwood Park police, as well as various weapons offenses -- including being a felon in possession of a firearm -- by both departments, records show.

Pizzi is accused of robbing the 7-Day Convenience Store on Boulevard in Elmwood Park twice before the fateful Thursday night encounter at Tobacco Road on River Drive in Garfield.

That night, police said, he entered the smoke shop wearing the same mask as in the previous holdups and carrying what sources told Daily Voice turned out to be a BB gun.

“This is a robbery!” he announced, pointing the gun at the store owner and his wife, Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said Friday.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of that story.

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ALSO SEE: The third armed robbery Elmwood Park in a week -- this one of a local gas station on Saturday night -- had police turning to the public for help.

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Records show Pizzi was 14 when he was convicted in February 2003 of sexually assaulting two underage girls he was babysitting.

A series of arrests then followed his release from custody, beginning in 2009. In one instance, in 2010, police said Pizzi stabbed three men during a fight over a woman.

He's also been arrested the past several years for assault, theft, forgery, disorderly conduct and weapons offenses, records show.

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