updated: Man accused in Ypsilanti purse snatching held on $25,000 bond

Kenneth Sutton, 55, has been charged with unarmed robbery and two counts of stealing a financial transaction device, according to court records. Sutton was arrested Friday in Ann Arbor for the Thursday afternoon robbery.

Ypsilanti police Detective Sgt. Troy Fulton said on Friday that Sutton approached the Milan woman after she got into her car in a parking lot of a building at about 1:45 p.m. Thursday in the 100 block of North Huron Street. Sutton asked the woman for money and, after she gave him a dollar, he reached across her and grabbed her purse from the passenger seat of the vehicle, Fulton said.

Sutton wrestled the purse away from the woman and fled the area, managing to elude a police search that followed the report, Fulton said. The woman escaped uninjured.

The woman was interviewed and shown pictures of possible suspects. She was able to identify a picture of Sutton and he was found at about 1 p.m. Friday near State and Washington streets in Ann Arbor, according to Fulton.

Sutton has a long criminal history, including active sentences for unarmed robbery and unlawfully driving away an automobile in 2007, burning other real property in 1998, breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a crime in 1989, escaping from prison in 1988 and attempted larceny in a building in 1988, according to state records.

He’s also been convicted of larceny in a building in 1988 and breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a crime in 1975.

Sutton, of Ypsilanti Township, will be back in court for a preliminary exam at 8:30 a.m. April 24, according to jail records.