A man with a gun robbed DeDe’s All Lottery Games at 1786 N.W. Ninth St. early Tuesday morning.

According to information from the Corvallis Police Department, at about 1:45 a.m., an employee activated a hold-up alarm at the business. When officers arrived, they spoke with a female employee who was the only worker at DeDe’s during the robbery. She said a man wearing a black ski mask and black gloves came in and confronted the her with a gray revolver.

The suspect stole an undisclosed amount of money while he moved the clerk around the store. The man then fled though the back door. The employee was unharmed.

Police searched the area with assistance from a K-9 tracking team from the Linn County Sheriff's Office, but they did not find the man.

The suspect is described as a white male with blue eyes, possibly in his 20s or 30s. He is between 5-foot-8-inches and 6 feet tall with a thin to medium build. In addition to the mask and gloves, the man was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and black and brown hiking boots.

Police are withholding information about the amount of money and where in the business it was taken from.

By Tuesday afternoon, DeDe’s was open and serving customers. A manager, citing company policy, declined to speak about the robbery. A sign on the front door prohibits anyone entering the business from wearing masks or hoods.

It was the second time in a year the business has been hit by an armed robber.

Mid-morning on Nov. 2 2008, a man came into DeDe’s and showed a silver handgun to a female clerk. He forced her to empty several lottery machines and the cash register. A few weeks later, AJ’s Dawg Haus at 1420 N.W. Ninth St. also was robbed at gunpoint.

Two Springfield men were arrested in connection to the crimes this spring. Christopher Stechelin, 40, pleaded guilty  to two counts of first-degree conspiracy to commit robbery and was sentenced to 46 months in prison for each count.

Charges against the man who allegedly held the gun in both cases, Ricardo Ferrari, were dismissed in October. Deputy District Attorney Mike Flinn said that the move was made “to allow for more time to evaluate the case and determine if additional evidence is necessary and available.”

Ferrari, 46, is currently in prison on unrelated charges out of Lane County.

Anyone with information concerning the most recent robbery is asked to contact Detective Shawn Houck at 766-6779.