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Boardman man convicted of seven prior robberies now faces charges in two more in Warren area
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A Boardman man who will spend 25 years or more in prison for a Walgreens robbery in Michigan on Oct. 14, 2015, is in Trumbull County to face charges in two similar robberies in Howland and Warren that occurred Oct. 9 and 11 last year.
Eric G. Lawson, 37, who is listed in court documents as having a Turnberry Drive address, was brought to the Trumbull County Jail on Saturday from Hastings, Mich.
He has been convicted in seven previous robberies in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. He also has a pending auto-theft charge from Austintown.
Julie Nakfoor-Pratt, the Barry County, Mich., prosecutor, said during Lawson’s sentencing in June that he has a “long history of violent offenses, including several robberies in the state of Ohio.”
She called him a “menace to society” before a judge sentenced him to 26 to 60 years in prison, according to mlive.com, a Michigan news outlet. Lawson pleaded no contest in April to armed robbery as a fourth-offense habitual offender.
“Lawson is a menace to society, and this sentence is well-deserved,” the prosecutor said. “He has no empathy or respect for what he has put the victims and our community through.”
Prosecutors said Lawson was traveling to see a friend in Kent County, Mich., when he stopped at the Walgreens in Hastings, Mich., on Oct. 14. He went inside, gave a note to an employee saying he had a gun, then demanded cash.
In Trumbull County, Lawson is charged with two counts of robbery related to charges saying he committed an 11 p.m. robbery Oct. 9 at Speedway, 400 E. Market Street, Warren, and a 7 p.m. Oct. 11 robbery at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, 2393 Niles-Cortland Road, Howland.
Images captured at both robberies showed a man wearing a black, hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head with white strings hanging down, police said.
In the Speedway robbery, the suspect told employees, “Give me the money,” then screamed, “Give me the money,” when employees thought he was joking. He got cash and fled on foot, police said.
A woman pumping gas at the time pulled out her cellphone and videotaped the suspect as he left the store.
In the Five Guys robbery, the suspect put his hand under his hooded sweatshirt and demanded money. He walked out the front doors with the cash.
Warrants were issued for Lawson’s arrest in the Trumbull County robberies Oct. 14, the day he committed the Michigan robbery. He could get several years if convicted in the two Trumbull County robberies.
Lawson was still on probation in Ohio at the time of the robberies through the Ohio Parole Authority after serving seven years and four months for committing four robberies in less than two weeks in Youngstown in November 2006.
Lawson’s first robbery in that spree was the Family Dollar on South Avenue on Nov. 17. That was the same day he left a Community Corrections Association halfway house, where he had resided after being paroled after a prison term for two prior robberies, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor said, according to Vindicator files.
Lawson then robbed the Walgreens Pharmacy on South Avenue and Midlothian Boulevard on Nov. 21; the Subway sandwich shop at 830 E. Midlothian Blvd., where he threatened to shoot an employee Nov. 25; and the same Family Dollar again Nov. 29.
“I made the dumbest mistakes I could ever imagine,” Lawson told Judge R. Scott Krichbaum at the time.
Lawson’s attorney, Thomas Zena, termed the robberies unplanned acts of “complete desperation” by a drug abuser.
The two earlier robberies involved the Burger King on West Midlothian Boulevard and the Taco Bell on Market Street in early 2003.
Witnesses told police that Lawson implied he had a gun when he entered Burger King and demanded money and when he stood in the drive-through lane at Taco Bell, according to Vindicator files.
His first felony conviction appears to have been when he was 19 in November 1998, when he was convicted of two drug charges.