A Brandon Township man who went on a crime spree will be arraigned on various charges in the 6th Circuit Court in Pontiac this week, says Oakland County Sheriff’s Detective Brad Teague of the Brandon substation.
Matt Diem, 18, of Brandon Township will be arraigned on charges of breaking and entering Jim’s Cracker Barrel, 5500 Oakhill Road, two home invasion charges, larceny of an automobile, and fraudulent financial transactions.
Darnell Armstrong, 17, of Waterford, will also be arraigned on the breaking and entering charge.
According to police reports, it was 2:15 a.m. on Aug. 25 when a Brandon deputy on patrol found Armstrong and another man sitting in a silver Aztec in the parking lot of a church at Seymour Lake and Sashabaw roads. When the deputy questioned the men, they said they were waiting for their friend, Matt, who had gone to a Sahabaw address. The deputy observed an empty Newport cigarette carton in the car, as well as a bottle of Morgan’s spiced rum, both items that were reported to have been taken during the break-in of Jim’s Cracker Barrel on Aug. 21. The deputy ran a LEIN check on the vehicle and found it had been stolen the day before. The men were detained and Diem was found asleep under a deck at the Sashabaw address, next to a broken basement window.
Upon questioning, Diem admitted to breaking into Jim’s Cracker Barrel through the roof with Armstrong. They planned to steal numerous cartons of cigarettes and bottles of rum, but when an alarm went off and they couldn’t leave through a back door, they dropped everything except the one carton of Newports when they had to go back through the roof to get out. Diem also confessed to driving off without paying for gas at a Sunoco station on M-59, as well as doing a ‘smash and grab? at a Clark gas station on Cooley Lake Road in Waterford. He also said he had done dame to Virgil Tree Farm with a four-wheeler and admitted stealing three credit cards from his stepfather and the Aztec from his stepmother.
Armstrong also confessed to the Cracker Barrel break-in and taking part in the Sunoco and Clark stations crimes. The men are currently lodged at the Oakland County Jail.