In a screwball crime spree a would-be robber tried a screwdriver twice and a pretend gun once, during a single day of trying to steal from more than one person, as reported by Penn Live.
J.V., 54, told a judge that his criminal behavior was all due to him being involved with the wrong type of woman. Cumberland County Judge Kevin Hess listened while J.V. said that she got him to abuse bath salts to the point that he ran out of money and had to steal.
After pleading guilty and apologizing for his actions, J.V., was sentenced to up to 6 years in a state prison for one count of robbery, and an unrelated charge of driving under the influence.
J.V. had also pleaded guilty to robbery in Dauphin County Court. He was sentenced to up to 30 years for two counts, and an additional count each for escape and flight to avoid apprehension.
The two prison terms will run concurrently.
On April 21 at approximately 2 p.m. in a CVS store's parking lot J.V. had attempted to use a screwdriver to break open a woman's car door to steal her money. The victim told Lower Allen Township police that J.V. had walked up to her outside of the store, asked her for money, and she retreated into her car – she told him she would get the money from her car but instead she locked him out.
J.V. struck the car's window twice with his screwdriver before giving up and driving off in a blue Buick. The woman, undaunted, followed him in her vehicle. She wrote down his driver's license number, then drove back to the CVS lot and telephoned the police.
After running the plate number, and identifying the car as J.V.'s, the police received another emergency call. This time another victim had been putting her grocery bags into her car when J.V. allegedly aimed his screwdriver at her and said, "I need cash. I only want your wallet, not your purse."
The victim told J.V. that she didn't have any cash, so he then asked her for her ATM card. As he left he allegedly muttered, "I guess things are tough all over."
In between these incidents, according to police, J.V. tried his luck at the parking lot of the Harrisburg East mall. He held his hand in a pocket of his jacket in a way that it resembled a gun and approached another potential victim. This time he got money and a purse.
Officers located the victim's discarded purse and, possibly, J.V.'s jacket. Officers arrested J.V. in one of the mall stores. One of the victims later identified him.
J.V. has received some credit off of his sentence: 6 months and 10 days toward the Dauphin County sentence and 246 days toward the sentence issued from Cumberland County.
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