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Armed robbery suspect faces new charges
YOUNGSTOWN
A 46-year-old man facing charges in a 2009 armed robbery of a North Side pizza shop now faces charges of retaliation and attempted aggravated murder in that case.
A Mahoning County grand jury handed up a superseding indictment against Stanley Croom, 46, of Plazaview Court, on the additional felony charges.
Croom, and co-defendant Jeffrey Shorter, 43, of Orange Avenue, were facing aggravated robbery and illegal possession of weapons charges.
Shorter is not facing any additional charges.
Rebecca Doherty, an assistant county prosecutor handling the case, would not say specifically what brought about the additional charges but did say the charges are connected to the pizzeria robbery. Croom has been in the Mahoning County jail since his arrest in 2009.
“I can’t really go into all of it, but suffice it to say he has acquired these new charges since being in the jail,” she said.
According to the indictment, the retaliation charge alleges Croom by “force or unlawful threat of harm” retaliated against the female victim of a crime because the victim filed criminal charges against him. The attempted-murder charge, according to the indictment, alleges Croom attempted to cause the death of that victim.
Croom and Shorter are charged in the armed robbery of the Belleria Pizzeria on Wick Avenue two days after Christmas in 2009.
According to police, one of the men went into the pizzeria just before 7:30 p.m., grabbed an employee over the counter and pointed a handgun at the woman. The man ordered the employee to open the cash register and not to press any alarm buttons.
The man ran out of the store when the employee was unable to open the cash register.
Police, after an investigation and witness statements, arrested the two men on misdemeanor outstanding warrants and suspicion of robbery.
Croom is no stranger to the criminal justice system. He has prior convictions for aggravated robbery and murder. A check of the state’s adult offender database shows Croom was sentenced to 22 years to life in prison in 1985 for two counts of aggravated robbery and murder.
He was paroled from prison in June 2008.
The pizzeria-robbery case has been scheduled to proceed several times, but has been postponed because Croom has requested new counsel several times, court records show.