The 26-year-old served a five-year prison sentence from 2007 until 2012 for a previous robbery conviction and was only out of prison for a few months before he robbed Young’s in August of 2012, said Clark County Assistant Prosecutor Dan Driscoll. Grable could also get more jail time for violating his terms of parole, Driscoll added.
During the sentencing hearing, Grable did not speak on his own behalf. But his defense attorney told the court Grable suffers from mental problems for which he takes medication and that Grable maintains his innocence. A second defense attorney appeared in the court Thursday and said Grable would be filing an appeal.
“The evidence in this case was, to me, overwhelming and I think the jury reflected that as well when they came back with a pretty quick verdict on this,” Driscoll said.
A jury found Grable guilty in February of two counts of kidnapping and one count of aggravated robbery. The two kidnapping convictions were combined for sentencing purposes.
Investigators said Grable and another man, whose identity still has not been discovered, approached a female manager in the parking lot of the restaurant as she was leaving after closing the store and forced her back inside. The men threatened her and a second manager inside the business with a baseball bat. While inside, the two men forced the workers to open the safe and tied up the victims with duct tape.
Grable was identified by traces of his DNA left behind on a piece of glove that ripped off onto the tape. The female manager also identified Grable by his voice because she knew him personally as the boyfriend of one her friends, Driscoll said.
The prosecution and judge pointed out that the woman taped up and threatened by Grable suffered severe emotional and psychological harm from the robbery and subsequently quit her job at the business, where she had been employed for several years. She also found it necessary to move away from the area.
The business also suffered financial losses after the robbery. Although the exact amount of cash that the two men got away with was never disclosed, the business took a loss of $1,000 that was not covered by its insurance company. As part of his sentence, Grable was ordered to pay that money back to the business.
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