LITTLE ROCK -- Two Indiana men are facing maximum sentences of 20 to 40 years in federal prison after pleading guilty Monday in back-to-back plea hearings to charges related to the attempted robbery of a Jonesboro pharmacy and the robbery later the same day of an Illinois grocery store.
Tavon Lockridge, 22, and Raymond Craig, 23, both of Indianapolis, entered the pleas before U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky. The two men were indicted for an attempted robbery of a CVS Pharmacy in Jonesboro that occurred June 21, 2018.
In addition to the Jonesboro robbery attempt, both men also pleaded guilty to a robbery the same day of a Greenville, Ill., grocery store in a case transferred from the Southern District of Illinois under Rule 20 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. That indictment was handed up by an Illinois grand jury Jan. 21, 2021.
Lockridge was represented at the hearing by Joseph Robert Perry of Marianna, and Craig was represented by James Winnfield Wyatt of Little Rock. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bart Dickinson prosecuted the case on behalf of the U.S. government.
Lockridge and Craig were indicted by a grand jury in Arkansas on Sept. 11, 2020, on one count each of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, attempt to interfere with commerce by robbery and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. In exchange for the men pleading guilty to attempt to interfere with commerce by robbery, Rudofsky granted Dickinson's motion to dismiss the other two counts.
In addition to the indictment from Arkansas, the two men agreed to plead guilty to the Illinois indictment charging them with one count each of interference with commerce by robbery and to be sentenced in Arkansas.
The statutory maximum sentence on each count that Lockridge and Craig pleaded to is 20 years in prison. If sentenced concurrently, the maximum prison time each man would be subject to is 20 years, but if ordered to serve the sentences consecutively, the maximum time could equal 40 years in prison.
Dickinson said on June 21, 2018, Lockridge and Craig, along with an unidentified suspect, entered the CVS Pharmacy in Jonesboro wearing black hoodies, and the unidentified suspect pulled out a handgun and pointed it at several store employees.
"The other two suspects were identified as Raymond Craig and Tavon Lockridge," Dickinson said. "Lockridge and Craig used zip ties to tie up the store employees."
Dickinson said the men told employees they were robbing the store and attempted to get money and drugs from the pharmacy but were thwarted when a customer ran screaming from the store and escaped.
"The men ran out without obtaining any property," Dickinson said.
Dickinson said the same three men held up a grocery store later that same day, a CC Food Mart in Greenville, Ill., about 300 miles from Jonesboro, which resulted in the indictment from Illinois.
"A firearm was brandished and violence was threatened to the clerk of that CC Food Mart," he said, adding that the men got away from that robbery with an undisclosed amount of money from the store cash register. Dickinson said that Lockridge and Craig were identified from surveillance video from several locations and phone records confirmed the plan to rob the CVS Pharmacy in Jonesboro.
"For the record, and I think it's appropriate here," Dickinson told Rudofsky near the end of Lockridge's hearing, "in the Illinois case and the Jonesboro case, I will advise the court that Mr. Lockridge was not the individual who was holding the weapon, although working in concert."
"I took that from what you said, but I appreciate you being explicit about it," Rudofsky said.
During Craig's hearing Wyatt asked for the same clarification.
"I want to make sure it's clear that in both the Eastern District of Arkansas case and the Southern District of Illinois case it was that unidentified person who had the firearm," Wyatt said. "Mr. Craig did not have one in either case."
"Mr. Dickinson has made that clear," Rudofsky told Wyatt, after which Craig pleaded guilty to Count 2 of the Arkansas indictment and the single count in the Illinois indictment.
Rudofsky advised both men that a sentencing hearing will be scheduled sometime next year following completion and review of a presentence report prepared by the U.S. Probation Office. At that time, he said, he will decide on punishment and whether any prison terms are to run concurrently or consecutively with each other or with any other terms of imprisonment which may apply.
According to court records, Lockridge has been held by the U.S. Marshals Service in pretrial detention since his arrest on Oct. 9, 2020, and subsequent transfer from the Northern District of Ohio. Craig is currently serving a 135-month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty July 18, 2019, in the Western District of Missouri to a July 25, 2018, robbery of a Walgreens Pharmacy in Jefferson City, Mo.