Transient Pleads Guilty in Robberies, Assault

A 35-year-old transient pleaded guilty Monday to taking part in a shoot-out with an armored-car driver in a crowded Gelson’s Market in North Hollywood and to two robberies in Diamond Bar.

Calvin Michael Grant pleaded guilty to four counts of robbery and one count of assault with a deadly weapon, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Kahn.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Darlene E. Schempp set sentencing for Jan. 4. Grant faces a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison, Kahn said.

Grant’s co-defendant, Steven Bernard Young, faces trial in January on the same charges.

According to Kahn, Grant and another man identified by prosecutors as Young, attempted to rob the driver of an armored car as he picked up money inside the Gelson’s Market on Laurel Canyon Boulevard about 1 p.m. As customers ducked for cover, the driver of the armored car, David E. Forney, fired back, wounding Grant in the thigh.

No one else was injured, and Grant and the other man escaped in a car. Grant was arrested four days later at a Brentwood motel after officers found a plastic bag containing bloody clothing outside the motel and linked him to the robberies, Kahn said.

Young was arrested about six months later in Los Angeles.

Grant also pleaded guilty to stealing $37,500 from an armored car outside a K mart store in Diamond Bar on Dec. 22, 1987, and to stealing $5,000 during a robbery of a Coast Savings in Diamond Bar on May 17, 1988.

Both men are being investigated in connection with other armed robberies and could face more charges, Kahn said.