A 14-year-old boy acknowledged Wednesday that he robbed a Butler Township drugstore for cigarettes last month.

The youth’s admission was made during a juvenile court hearing before Butler County President Judge Thomas Doerr.

Butler Township police said the teenager on March 12 walked into the Walgreens on New Castle Road and showed a clerk what appeared to be a handgun. He made off with cartons of cigarettes.

The firearm, it turned out, was an Airsoft gun, the boy’s lawyer disclosed after the hearing.

“My client, who is very young and who has never been in any juvenile trouble before, recognizes that he made a poor decision and what he did was serious and wrong,” attorney Patrick Casey said following the proceedings.

“He’s been remorseful since my first meeting with him,”

The child, wearing blue jeans and a blue T-shirt at his pre-adjudication conference, admitted to a charge of robbery, which is the equivalent to a guilty plea in adult court.

The admission came after prosecutors agreed to reduce the grading of the charge from a first-degree to a third-degree felony.

That decision was made, said Russ Karl, a Butler County assistant district attorney, because the gun the boy used was not a real one. No one was hurt in the robbery.

Casey noted outside the courtroom that the teen only displayed that he had a weapon but never pointed the Airsoft pistol at the clerk or threatened the employee.

In exchange for the boy’s admission, prosecutors also withdrew lesser charges of theft and simple assault.

Juvenile court proceedings are typically closed to the public, but the boy’s case fell under an exception since he was at least 14 at the time of the incident and his crimes would have been graded as felonies in adult court.

Wednesday’s hearing was previously delayed two weeks to allow for the teen’s recent mental health evaluation.

The results of that evaluation were not discussed but Casey told Doerr his client would undergo “strength-based therapy,” a behavioral modification technique that emphasizes building one’s self-esteem and sense of empowerment.

The boy will remain at the Keystone Adolescent Center in Mercer County at least until his May 1 disposition hearing, which is similar to sentencing in adult court.

Doerr has various options he can impose on the teen including placing him outside the home. Juvenile sentences are indefinite and must be reviewed every six months.

The boy could be ordered held at a detention facility until he turns 21, the most severe disposition.

The teen’s parents, who are divorced, were in court for the hearing. Before his arrest, the boy was living with his father and grandmother at their home in Butler Township not far from the Walgreens.

Two other boys, including the robber’s older brother, meanwhile, earlier admitted in juvenile court they helped plan the crime. Those other boys, 14 and 16, also shared in the stolen cigarettes.

The two accomplices, who each admitted to a charge of receiving stolen property, are back home with their families and both are wearing court-ordered electronic monitoring devices.