An Okinawa-based Marine arrested April 18, 2024, on suspicion of attempting to rob a convenience store has been rearrested in connection to an earlier robbery at store a half-mile away. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A U.S. Marine suspected of attempted assault and robbery of an Okinawa convenience store on April 18 was officially charged Wednesday with attempted theft, said a spokesman for the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office.

Lance Cpl. Andrew Torres, 20, of the III Marine Logistics Group at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, was then rearrested on suspicion of an April 3 convenience store robbery, according to a spokesman for Okinawa prefectural police.

After the April 18 incident, police said a man in black pants and a black hooded sweatshirt carried a knife into a Lawson between 12:53 a.m. and 1:03 a.m., went behind the counter and tried to open the cash register. The store is in the Nodake district of Ginowan city.

The clerk, watching a security camera in the back office, saw the man at the register, ran from the store and called police from his cellphone, a police spokesman said last month. No customers were in the store at the time.

Officers arrested Torres running from the parking lot, with no money from the store in his possession.

Torres has been held by Okinawa city police since then, the police spokesman said by phone Thursday.

After he was charged Wednesday, Torres was immediately rearrested on suspicion of the April 3 convenience store robbery in Ginowan’s Aragusuku district, the police spokesman said.

In that case, police say Torres threatened a clerk with a knife and stole about $840 worth of yen.

Under the Japanese judicial system, prosecutors, not police, decide whether to file charges.

Some government spokespeople in Japan are required to speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.