A Warren County man is in the Indiana County Jail today after he allegedly burglarized a home and attempted to rob Pike’s Peak Nursery at gunpoint. A male employee at the Cherryhill Township nursery along Route 422 took him down and disarmed him.
State police say 37-year-old Justin Ludwig of Warren walked into Pikes Peak at around five o’clock Wednesday afternoon and asked employees for a ride as he was without transportation and had left the nearby SpiritLife recovery facility earlier that day. When he didn’t get a ride, Ludwig allegedly pulled a handgun and pointed it at two employees, a man and a woman, ordering them to get on the ground and then to open a safe. When the male employee refused to open the safe, Ludwig threatened to hit him with the gun, but the employee instead rushed Ludwig and tackled him, then forced him outside of the building and disarmed him. Meanwhile, the female employee called 911, and it took police only three minutes to get there, finding Ludwig and the male employee fighting in the parking lot. Police ordered Ludwig to surrender and he did.
The gun Ludwig had was a .40-caliber Beretta registered to a nearby resident of North Harmony Road. State troopers went there and found a broken door window. The homeowner arrived and told them the gun was missing, along with three other handguns, a Samsung tablet, jewelry, knives, coins, and a Roku device. All of those items were found inside a pillowcase Ludwig had brought with him to Pikes Peak.
Ludwig was ordered held at the jail with bond set at $50,000. He was charged Wednesday with five felony counts of theft and a single felony count of burglary. Yesterday, charges of robbery, criminal attempted theft, and terroristic threats were added.
