{"id":21543,"date":"2026-03-18T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/?p=21543"},"modified":"2026-03-17T06:10:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:10:53","slug":"fargo-popeyes-robbery-charge-goes-federal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/fargo-popeyes-robbery-charge-goes-federal\/","title":{"rendered":"Fargo Popeyes Robbery Charge Goes Federal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FARGO, N.D.<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">trfnews.i234.me<\/a>) \u2014 A Fargo man now faces a federal robbery charge after a Jan. 3 case at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in Fargo.<\/p>\n<p>A federal grand jury indicted <strong>Phillip D. Parks<\/strong>, 36, on one count of Hobbs Act robbery. Court records say the indictment was filed Jan. 28 in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndd.uscourts.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say the case began at the Popeyes restaurant at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popeyes.com\/restaurants\/restaurant_85196\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">4510 19th Ave. S. in Fargo<\/a>. They allege Parks took cash from an employee through force, threats, and fear of injury.<\/p>\n<h2>Federal case follows January arrest<\/h2>\n<p>Police first arrested Parks on Jan. 3 after a robbery report from the business. An employee was taken to a local medical center. The injuries were described as not life-threatening.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities later found Parks that same afternoon. He was then taken to the Cass County Jail.<\/p>\n<p>The new charge moves the case into federal court. The charge is tied to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/1951\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hobbs Act<\/a>. That law covers robbery or extortion tied to interstate commerce.<\/p>\n<p>According to the statute, a conviction can bring up to 20 years in federal prison. Federal prosecutors have not announced a trial date in the information released here.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_22534\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22534\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22534\" src=\"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Phillip-D.-Parks-300x266.png\" alt=\"Phillip D. Parks\" width=\"300\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Phillip-D.-Parks-300x266.png 300w, https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Phillip-D.-Parks.png 394w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-22534\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Phillip D. Parks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>What the charge means<\/h2>\n<p>A federal indictment is a formal accusation. It is not a conviction. The government must still prove the charge in court.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, prosecutors say the robbery involved a business that operates in interstate commerce. That is why the Hobbs Act charge was used.<\/p>\n<p>The case will now move through the federal court process in North Dakota. That process can include an arraignment, motions, plea talks, or a trial.<\/p>\n<p>Readers can follow federal court information through the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndd.uscourts.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">District of North Dakota court website<\/a>. More background on the law is also available through the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/jm\/jm-9-131000-hobbs-act-18-usc-1951\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. Department of Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This story will be updated if new court filings are released.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m Chris Harper reporting for <a href=\"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TRF News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FARGO, N.D. (trfnews.i234.me) \u2014 A Fargo man now faces a federal robbery charge after a Jan. 3 case at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in Fargo. A federal grand jury indicted Phillip D. Parks, 36, on one count of Hobbs Act robbery. Court records say the indictment was filed Jan. 28 in the U.S. District Court for&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/fargo-popeyes-robbery-charge-goes-federal\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Fargo Popeyes Robbery Charge Goes Federal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscp_schedule_draft_date":"","_wpscp_schedule_republish_date":"","_wpscppro_advance_schedule":false,"_wpscppro_advance_schedule_date":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":null,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"default","_threads_share_type":"default","_google_business_share_type":"default","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12],"tags":[764,848,772,769,1103,15191,5750,1503,4493,596,10247,15193,15192,14631,4094],"class_list":["post-21543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","tag-cass-county-jail","tag-charge","tag-crime","tag-fargo","tag-fargo-crime-news","tag-fargo-popeyes-robbery","tag-fargo-robbery","tag-federal","tag-federal-indictment","tag-goes","tag-hobbs-act-robbery","tag-north-dakota-federal-court","tag-phillip-d-parks","tag-popeyes","tag-robbery","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22536,"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21543\/revisions\/22536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trfnews.i234.me\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}