Published: May 08, 2009 03:23 pm      

Indy man sentenced for armed robbery

DANVILLE — An Indianapolis man was sentenced to 17 years in prison for armed robbery and being a habitual offender.

Jeremiah Abell, 28, of 5755 Woodside Drive, pleaded guilty in Hendricks Superior Court 3 to armed robbery, a class B felony, and being a habitual offender. Three D felonies of pointing a firearm at another and a B felony count of possessing a firearm by a serious violent felon were dropped in exchange for the plea. Abell was given seven years in the Indiana Department of Correction for the armed robbery charge and 10 years for the habitual offender count — to be served consecutively.

In a probable cause affidavit, officials say Abell attacked a 64-year-old courier for the McDonald’s restaurant in Camby. On Oct. 27, 2008, law enforcement responded to reports of an armed robbery in the parking lot of the National City Bank on Heartland Boulevard in Camby. Bank employees and a customer told police a man rushed the courier in the bank parking lot and demanded the deposit he was delivering in a camouflage money bag. Witnesses say the perpetrator used a handgun to strike the courier on the right side of his head, causing a laceration and bruising.

Police say the assailant was able to make off with about $5,600 in cash, and that he pointed his gun at the customer and various bank employees when they tried to assist the robbery victim.

Witnesses were able to give police a description of the bank robber’s vehicle, including a license plate number. Officials traced the vehicle to a Camby address, which was less than a mile from the bank and showed the car’s owner was involved in an armed robbery case in 2004.

The next morning officers served a search warrant on the property. The homeowners reportedly advised police that the vehicle in question was registered to their daughter, and told them where she lived.

The affidavit states officers then went to the daughter’s house. Police say the daughter at first misidentified herself and told them she didn’t know Abell, then admitted that he was in the back bedroom. Officials report they then entered the house and arrested Abell. He reportedly told officers his girlfriend and her sister, who also lived at the house, had nothing to do with the robbery. Abell told police he worked at the Camby McDonald’s and decided to rob the courier. He claimed he took his girlfriend’s car keys out of her purse and drove to the bank to commit the robbery, using a gun he bought on the streets of Indianapolis.

Of the approximately $5,600 stolen, Abell told officials he loaned out about $3,500, gave his girlfriend $500, and spent the rest. He also told police he threw the gun in a river and admitted chucking the money bag into a dumpster, which was later retrieved by a citizen and given to the National City Bank in Mars Hill.

Police later searched the house where Abell was staying and found $950 stashed in a clothes hamper.



wade.coggeshall@flyergroup.com