LINDEN — An Edison man was found guilty of robbing a Payless shoe store in this city back in 2012.

Mervin Fitzgerald, 51, of Edison, was convicted on charges of first-degree kidnapping and second-degree robbery. His accomplice, however, remains at large after all these years.

The robbery happened at the store on Routes 1&9 at 7:40 p.m. on New Year's Eve in 2012.

Prosecutors say Fitzgerald and another man forced two 18-year-old employees into the back room at gunpoint and ordered them to the floor, where they were tied up. A customer later found the bound workers.

The robbers took about $200 in cash, police said.

Investigators nabbed Fitzgerald two years later in 2014, using DNA evidence from a glove that was left behind and eyewitness accounts to tie him to the crime.

Fitzgerald faces up to 30 years in prison on the kidnapping charge when he is sentenced by a Superior Court judge in Elizabeth on May 12.

His lawsuit against the Linden Police Department and the Union County Prosecutor's Office alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution was dismissed earlier this year by a U.S. District Court judge.

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