Loading ...Judge Gives Accomplice Five Years
Abdur Rahman Shahid said he ran away from police because he has AIDS and was afraid of dying in prison for an armed robbery he didn’t commit.
But a jury decided that though he wasn’t guilty of robbery, he was guilty of grand theft.
And he still will go to prison – where he says he surely will die.
Shahid faced up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the July 6 robbery that ended in a two-county car chase.
Instead, by law, Circuit Judge Helen S. Hansel sentenced him to five years for grand theft.
Shahid and Gerald Stacks were arrested on charges that they wore ski masks and pointed guns at a couple, robbing them of that day’s business receipts in the parking lot of the Southeast Bank on 34th Street S in St. Petersburg.
A few minutes after the robbery, a St. Petersburg police officer saw a car matching the description of the getaway car and began a chase that ended in Tampa and was captured on video by a WTSP-Ch. 10 news helicopter. That video was used as evidence in the three-day trial.
As police chased the men in Shahid’s rental car, guns and a purse were thrown out the window. Shahid said Stacks and another man committed the robbery and then Stacks dropped the other man off and picked Shahid up.
Shahid said Stacks told him to throw stuff out the window and he did – except for the $5,900 in cash that he stuck in his pants before running from police.
Shahid, 36, told the jury Wednesday that he was a victim of circumstance and had no idea Stacks committed a robbery until they ended up in the chase. And, he said, he stuck the money in his pants and ran from police because he was afraid.
Both men were caught. Stacks pleaded guilty earlier this year and was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, with a minimum mandatory sentence of three years. Wednesday, Stacks was called to testify and refused, claiming a Fifth Amendment right.
Although he was granted immunity, Stacks still refused to testify, and Hansel found him in contempt of court and sentenced him to four additional months in prison.
Shahid’s attorney, Bjorn Brunvand, told the jury that Shahid acted stupidly that day, by throwing things out the window, but it was because he was scared, not because he was guilty.
Prosecutors found Shahid’s story preposterous.
“It’s quite a story he had, but let’s face it – he was caught red-handed with the money in his pockets,”
Assistant State Attorney Joe Patner said. “Is he a poor victim of circumstance or a guy trying to tell a story to save his butt? That story is just a big lie.”
St. Petersburg Times – St. Petersburg, Fla.
Author: Laura Griffin