KITTANNING — An Ohio man has been sentenced to 1Z\x to 3 years in prison for pepper spraying an employee who caught him shoplifting at a Wal-Mart in May.

Fifty-two-year-old Paul Smartt Jr., of Solon, Ohio, was sentenced on a charge of robbery Tuesday. He had pleaded guilty in October.

Police say Smartt opened a box containing a fan at the Wal-Mart in East Franklin Township, and put two digital cameras inside it before he went through a checkout lane. Smartt paid for the fan and was leaving when the cameras triggers security alarms.

Police say Smartt resisted an employee's attempt to stop him by using pepper spray.

Smartt apologized at his sentencing. He will serve two years on probation after his prison sentence.

EBENSBURG — A man who had been on death row in the beating and strangulation killing of an 80-year-old Johnstown woman pleaded no contest to third-degree murder, ending years of appeals.Ernest Simmons, 52, has already spent 17½ years in prison for the 1992 killing of Anna Knaze. He was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison upon his plea Thursday, meaning he could be released from state prison any day.The state Board of Probation and Parole must determine when Simmons will be released because his plea violated his parole on two 1984 cases in which he robbed and assaulted elderly victims, Cambria County District Attorney Patrick Kiniry said.