ST. LOUIS – A Belleville, Illinois, woman was sentenced Tuesday for aiding in an armed robbery on the Arch Grounds in downtown St. Louis.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Missouri said Kaniya Sloan, 20, was at the monument with Christopher Franklin and a juvenile on the evening of Sept. 13, 2021.
The trio robbed a man and a woman at gunpoint. The woman surrendered her purse and the man handed over his iPhone and wallet.
Franklin drove with Sloan and the juvenile to a WalMart in Illinois, where the sold the victims’ phones in an EcoATM kiosk.
Because the crime happened at a national park, federal authorities got involved.
St. Louis police spotted the vehicle in downtown St. Louis two days after the robbery and made a traffic stop. Sloan, Franklin, and the juvenile were in the car, along with a handgun and one of the items from the female victim’s purse.
Prosecutors claimed Sloan and Franklin admitted to their crimes during police questioning.
Sloan and Franklin each pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to a robbery.
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Sloan to two years in federal prison. Franklin was sentenced in October 2022 and also received a two-year prison term.
Meanwhile, the juvenile, whose age was not released, pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in January 2022 and was committed to the Division of Youth Services for what the St. Louis Circuit Court calls “appropriate placement.”
Editor’s note: The date of the juvenile’s guilt plea initially had the wrong year and has been corrected. We regret the error.