Dartmouth football player held as suspect in Colorado armored truck robbery

Ahmir Braxton

Ahmir Braxton

By JOHN LIPPMAN

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 05-28-2023 7:00 PM

LEBANON — A Dartmouth College sophomore football player is being held without bail in Grafton County jail after being wanted as a fugitive in connection with an alleged armed robbery of an armored vehicle in Colorado earlier this year.

Ahmir Braxton, 19, was arrested on May 19 by Lebanon police on charges that he is one of three suspects who robbed more than $150,000 in cash while two security guards were transferring the money from an armored vehicle into a Colorado Springs bank ATM on Feb. 24, according to court documents.

He is also a suspect in a robbery of $83,000 in cash when a technician was servicing an ATM at another bank in Colorado Springs on Feb. 21, the police investigator wrote.

Braxton is being charged with aggravated robbery, theft and menacing in the Feb. 24 incident, all class three felonies, according to court documents.

Court documents do not state what specific role Braxton is accused of in the robbery or whether he is a suspect who allegedly brandished a handgun. One of the vehicles used in the getaway was later traced to registration under his name, and a forensic examination of his phone places it at scene of the crime when it occurred, a police investigator found.

Braxton is set to appear in Lebanon District Court on June 8, unless he is extradited to Colorado beforehand. He has been assigned a New Hampshire public defender, Miles Stafford, who did not respond to an email for comment on Friday.

Contacted Friday, Dartmouth College spokesperson Justin Anderson said the college had no comment.

Braxton graduated from Vista Ridge High School in Colorado Springs, where he played defensive back on the football team. He was a team captain as a senior and also cheered and competed in gymnastics, according to media accounts.

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In two seasons with the Big Green, Braxton has appeared in just one game — a win at Columbia on Oct. 22, 2022 — and did not register any statistics.

The police affidavit describing the early afternoon Feb. 24 gunpoint robbery of a Loomis armored truck in Colorado Springs, which the Valley News obtained on Friday, reads like a Hollywood movie.

A Loomis security guard was in the process of putting cash into the bank ATM when “he saw somebody jump over the wall behind him (and) then he felt pressure on his back and an unknown male said, ‘Put your hands in the air,’ ” and then the robber point a gun at him, the affidavit relates.

The suspect then stole a “brick” — a package of $20,000 in $20 bills — from the guard, as well as the guard’s Glock 17 semi-automatic handgun out of its holster, the affidavit alleges. They also dropped “numerous bills” as they fled the scene, but a count of the money determined that a total of $158,100 had been taken.

Once the investigator traced one of the getaway vehicles — which was also captured on video footage — to Braxton, he checked the suspect’s public Facebook profile and “saw several photos of the same person wearing football uniforms for Dartmouth College,” which led the investigator to Braxton’s photo on a Dartmouth webpage, the affidavit prepared by Detective Grant Nelson with the Colorado Springs Police Department states.

After obtaining a warrant, the investigator, by combining a digital forensic examination of Braxton’s phone and video footage of the vehicle registered in his name, showed that both had been “in the immediate vicinity” of the crime, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit includes photos taken from social media that purports to depict Braxton flashing a large bundle of cash bills following the Feb. 21 ATM bank robbery in Colorado Springs, the investigator wrote in the affidavit.

The court documents do not state whether the stolen money has been recovered.

Staff writer Benjamin Rosenberg contributed to this story.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.