The man who shot himself after an eight-hour standoff with police on Queen Anne has been charged with first-degree armed robbery of a man he met on the hookup app Grindr.
The man who shot himself after an eight-hour standoff with police on Queen Anne on Monday has been charged with first-degree armed robbery of a man he met on the hookup app Grindr.
The charges allege Alik Lebedev, 41, a registered sex offender, went to the victim’s condominium on Roy Street in Seattle on March 25 after the two connected on Grindr, which caters to gay and bisexual men.
After the two men met in person, the alleged victim said he wasn’t interested, although he told police that he and Lebedev were friendly and talked for a while. He gave Lebedev a glass of water, and Lebedev left that night.
However, the alleged victim said he had a change of heart and contacted Lebedev again on Grindr, and asked him to come back to the condo. The victim was in bed waiting for him when he said Lebedev came into the room, threatened him with a handgun, and stole cash, two watches and a credit card, according to charges.
King County prosecutors described the robbery as “sophisticated,” noting that before he left, Lebedev took the victim’s phone and removed the SIM data card, wiped his prints from a credit card he touched but left behind and forced the victim to delete the messages they’d exchanged.
However, the victim saved the drinking glass that Lebedev had used, and put it in a storage bag to preserve it for police. Detectives were able to use DNA and fingerprints they recovered from the glass to identify him, according to the charging documents filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court.
Detectives obtained a search warrant and were trying to serve it at Lebedev’s home on Galer Street on Queen Anne Hill on Monday when he barricaded himself in the home and threatened to shoot police or himself.
He shot himself in the chest after a tense, eight-hour standoff, but survived. He remains at Harborview Medical Center.
Court records indicate Lebedev, a Russian citizen who has lived in the U.S. for 16 years, served two years in prison after he was arrested in 2006 in an Internet sting for trying to solicit sex and sending pornographic photos and videos to a police officer in New Hampshire posing online as a 14-year-old boy.
Lebedev also was arrested in 2000, when he was caught using a stolen car and trying to steal $4,000 worth of rings in a burglary at the Everett Mall Sears. A store managerbluffed Lebedev into dropping his weapon.
He spent almost three years in prison for the burglary and 2½ years in prison for the sex-offense charges. He was released the second time in April 2009.
Lebedev was in trouble with the police again in 2010, when he failed to register his address when he moved.