Police arrest suspect in robbery at Drexel

Acting on a tip, police used cars and a helicopter yesterday to track and arrest a man wanted in a gunpoint robbery inside a Drexel University building last week.

Marvin Sutter, 45, who was known as Mike Gomez when he was a member of Temple University's basketball team in the 1980s, was taken into custody without incident about 3:45 p.m. at 13th Street and Allegheny Avenue in North Philadelphia, police said.

Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives said a tip put police on the trail of a car Sutter was driving in West Philadelphia yesterday afternoon.

Police found a gun in the car when they pulled it over and arrested him, Walker said.

A warrant was issued for Sutter's arrest Tuesday in the gunpoint robbery of a science instructor inside Drexel's Stratton Building at 3201 Chestnut St. last Thursday. Police said a surveillance video showed him casing the building.

Sutter fled with the 57-year-old victim's cell phone after she started screaming, police said.

Walker said Sutter was on Temple's basketball team in the 1980s, but there was no indication he played.

A Feb. 21, 1984, report in the Philadelphia Daily News described Gomez as a 6-foot-6 freshman forward from Olney who was in a federally funded program for academic underachievers. It said he was sitting out the season but could have become eligible the following year if he completed 24 credit hours and earned a 2.0 grade average.

Sutter has an arrest record dating to 1981, and in 2003 he was sentenced to five to 20 years in prison for robbery.