Penn Run man receives sentence for robbing store
A Penn Run man was sentenced to jail Thursday after pleading guilty to robbing a discount store of several hundred dollars the week before Christmas.
Judge William Shaffer sentenced Shawn Eric Graham, 42, to 6 to 23½ months in jail for robbery.
Graham pleaded guilty to the charge Dec. 11 in a plea deal, resulting in five other charges related to the Dec. 18 robbery. He was immediately paroled and he must also serve three years of probation.
Butler Township police said a man, later identified as Graham, walked into the store just before 7:30 p.m. on that day and purchased a package of mints. He handed a cashier a $1 bill.
According to court documents, while waiting for his change, the suspect told the female employee, “Give it all up, or I'm going to end it all.”
Police said the man insinuated that he had a weapon in his waistband, but none was seen. No one was injured.
The cashier opened the register and handed over all the money — $468.71, investigators said. The robber ran out of the store and headed toward the Target store and North Duffy Road. The employee locked up the store with customers inside and waited for police to arrive.
Graham was also sentenced Thursday in two other cases.
In one of those cases, he pleaded guilty to using a power tool around 10 p.m. Dec. 16 to try to drill out a locking mechanism of an automated cashier machine at Morgan's Car Wash on New Castle Road.
He did not crack into the machine, but he caused about $120 in damage, police said.
In this case, he was sentenced to 18 months of probation that are running simultaneously with his other case. He was also ordered to pay a restitution order of $118.72 for the damage.
In a third case, he was ordered to pay a $50 fine for a summary retail theft charge stemming from a Jan. 3 incident when Graham attempted to walk out with a widescreen TV, cat litter, windshield-washer fluid and two bags of candy, valued at a combined $371, in a shopping cart at the Butler Commons' Walmart.
A store employee confronted Graham, and the suspect allegedly fled empty-handed.
