(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
August 12, 2016 - 5:07 PM
KELOWNA – A Kelowna man from the Cariboo with a history of probation breaches was sentenced to five years in jail for using a handgun to rob a liquore store in West Kelowna earlier this year.
Riley Frank, 30, pleaded guilty to armed robbery and robbery using a restricted weapon for a crime he committed with another man on Jan. 16, 2016.
Shortly after 9 p.m. the lone female employee was working in a back room when she heard two men enter. She went behind the counter to take their order but the two men followed her around to the till.
Frank admits he took out a .45 handgun, pointed it at the clerk and ordered her to open the till.
“(He) screamed at her not to look at him, keep her eyes down and get the money from till,” Crown prosecutor Patty O’Neill said during the sentencing in Kelowna court Aug. 12. “She walks to the corner and faces the wall.”
The men took $1,200 worth of alcohol and cash and left. Both men were intoxicated and had been doing cocaine that day, court heard.
The surveillance video shown in court played a large part in the capture of Frank, who was arrested two days later when police pulled his vehicle over in the early morning hours of Jan. 18.
“Both were highly intoxicated by alcohol,” O’Neill said. “The truck was searched and a black handgun was found between front seats.”
The slide to the .45 was open and bullet ready to be chambered. The serial number had been removed and a fully loaded magazine was next to it.
Due to Frank’s lengthy criminal history, made up mostly of property thefts and breaches, O’Neill had asked for six years less the enhanced time already served of almost one year. Defence lawyer Gavin Jones had asked for the mandatory minimum for armed robbery of five years.
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