Teens sentenced after 7-cent robbery
The NY Daily reports that on December 22nd, 2010, Skyler Ninham and Anthony Stewart, 15, carried out their crime in which they knocked the elderly victim to the ground, kicked him in the head, punched him in the face -breaking his glasses – and then robbed him of just 7 cents – the only money the man had on him at the time.
While the victim testified the youths were both armed with real weapons – one appeared to be a revolver and the other a shotgun, he stated – during the assualt, Stewart later admitted in a confession that the weapons were BB guns.
Ninham, who pleaded guilty in July, was sentenced to one to four years in state prison with youthful offender treatment removing the felony conviction from his record.
Stewart, on the other hand, decided to fight the case and was found guilty of first-degree robbery by a jury
Onondaga County Judge William Walsh said on Monday that he decided to throw the book at Anthony Stewart, because the teen didn’t plead guilty to the crime which he reportedly implicated himself in during an earlier police confession.
Walsh, pointing out that the victim fingered both Stewart and Ninham in the crime, spoke to the 15-year-old saying “and yet you still denied it. Well, that cost you.”
Stewart’s lawyer, Laurin Haddad, said after the sentencing that she was disappointed with Walsh’s decision to reject her plea to treat the boy as a youthful offender.
The judge’s decision means the felony conviction will remain on Stewart’s permanent record. “For 7 cents, now you’re making someone a felon for the rest of his life,” Haddad said.
via NY Daily
