HONOR STUDENT CHARGED IN ROBBERY

BERKLEY, Mich. (AP) A high school honor student and gymnast in this
Detroit suburb has been charged with armed robbery and is a suspect in
several others, allegedly to support a heroin habit.

Sarah Plumb, 16, is in a juvenile lockup, awaiting trial as an adult on
charges that could land her a life prison sentence.

In all of the stickups, the robber said she had a weapon but did not show
it, police said. Michigan law requires only the threat of a weapon for an
armed-robbery conviction.

Defense attorney Howard Arnkoff said Ms. Plumb should have been handled as
a juvenile and should have been charged with something less than armed
robbery, since no weapon was displayed.

"If she gets convicted, its a non-probational offense. She must be
incarcerated. She must be sent to prison. And I seriously doubt she could
get the help she needs," he said.

Police said she had a $200-a-day heroin habit a figure one expert said
was significant.

"That's a pretty chronic stage of their addiction. Generally, clients buy
in $10 increments," said Bruce Goldberg, a therapist at Botsford General
Hospital's Eastwood Clinic who said Ms. Plumb likely was sharing the drug
with other people.

News of her arrest shocked the low-crime community of 16,000 that typically
only has a half dozen stickups each year.

"This is very scary," said Berkley High School spokeswoman and media
instructor Gwen Ahearn. "The kids were surprised about the heroin."

"Typically, hard drugs are few and far between," Detective Sgt. Ray Anger
said Wednesday. "Possibly a couple other kids are users of serious drugs,
but I don't know."

Though she denies committing the robberies, Ms. Plumb admits she is a
heroin addict. She was arrested Dec. 21.

She told police she began using the drug at 14 when a co-worker at a pizza
parlor introduced her and her boyfriend to heroin.

Last June, she got caught cashing a forged check stolen from the high
school and confessed she was using the money to buy heroin, Anger said.

The robberies began last month, police said.

About 6 p.m. on Dec. 2, wearing a skull Halloween face mask, she allegedly
entered an Amoco station next to the high school and told the 17-year-old
clerk a fellow student that she had a weapon.

Ms. Plumb made off with $300, then went to her gymnastics team practice,
police say.

She later tried to rob a BP station in Royal Oak on Dec. 14, then robbed a
beer and wine store in Berkley the same day, a pizzeria in Clawson on Dec.
15 and another pizzeria in Southfield on Dec. 16, Anger said. She has not
been charged in those holdups.

A friend tipped police to Ms. Plumb as a suspect in the first robbery.

The arrest created such a buzz among Berkley High School's 1,300 students
Wednesday that the administration took to the PA system to discourage
rumor-mongering about it.