A teen who robbed an AT&T store clerk at gunpoint was sentenced Friday.
Steven Pargo, 19, pleaded guilty to committing armed robbery in Lebanon when he was only 16. He and Javentay Chapman, 22, held the clerk at gunpoint and forced him to open a safe and then lie on the floor, according to court records. Chapman was 19 at the time.
The teens grabbed several iPhones, AirPods, and other electronics and asked if any had tracking devices. The employee lied, and police connected to a tracking device in one of the stolen items and followed a car carrying Pargo and Chapman in Indianapolis, where they were arrested in February 2021, according to court records.
The Indianapolis teens met a homeless woman who lived in her car at a gas station that day and hired her to drive them from Indianapolis to Lebanon and back, according to court records.
Chapman pleaded guilty in federal court in September to robbery and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and was sentenced to more than nine years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised probation.
Boone Superior Court I Judge Matthew Kincaid sentenced Pargo to nine years with the Indiana Department of Correction. But Kincaid recommended that Pargo participate in DOC Therapeutic Community placement and said he may seek a sentence modification if he successfully completes the program.
A therapeutic community lets an offender participate in an intense substance abuse treatment in a non-prison setting. Those who fail the treatment may be required to serve the remainder of their term in prison.