NORRISTOWN \u2014 A Delaware County man was sent to prison for the armed carjacking of a man outside a convenience store in Lower Merion Township.<\/p>\n
Kyle Conner Stewart, 19, of the 200 block of Wabash Avenue, Lansdowne, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 2\u00bd to 5 years in a state correctional facility after he pleaded guilty to charges of robbery, possession of a firearm by a minor and possession of marijuana in connection with the Sept. 8. 2024, gunpoint carjacking along City Avenue in the Wynnewood section of Lower Merion.<\/p>\n
Judge William R. Carpenter, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, also ordered Stewart to complete two years of probation consecutive to parole, meaning Stewart will be under court supervision for seven years.<\/p>\n
Stewart, who was 17 at the time of the incident, was charged as an adult because of the violent nature of the crime. The incident occurred just 22 days before Stewart turned 18.<\/p>\n
During a previous decertification hearing, Stewart lost his bid to transfer his case to juvenile court, where potential punishments are less harsh and the focus is more on rehabilitation and treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, the impact of the crimes on the victim and the community is significant. This defendant does pose a threat of danger to the public. His culpability, it was him acting alone committing these acts,\u201d Carpenter said at the time he denied transferring Stewart\u2019s case to juvenile court.<\/p>\n
Assistant District Attorney Christian Garfield Taffe argued against transferring Stewart to juvenile court and sought the state prison term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no one coaching him. There was no one with him. He chose on his own that night to walk up to this victim and use a firearm to force that victim to give him his keys and steal his vehicle,\u201d Taffe argued during the decertification hearing.<\/p>\n
Taffe previously argued that the impact on the victim, who had made a routine stop at a 7-Eleven store to get a bottle of water, \u201cwas immense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe explained to police officers that he feared for his life in that moment and that is something that will stay with him for the rest of his life,\u201d Taffe argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the impact of the offense on the community, it\u2019s also immense. In addition to the terrible act of a gunpoint robbery, the defendant ran through the community of Lower Merion and he disposed of the gun in the bushes along the sidewalk. This could have easily been picked up by somebody else and accidentally discharged,\u201d Taffe added.<\/p>\n
The investigation began about 4:26 a.m. Sept. 8, 2024, when Lower Merion police responded to the parking lot of the 7-Eleven in the 1400 block of City Avenue for a report of an armed carjacking in progress. The victim told arriving officers that \u201ca male pulled a firearm and took his vehicle from the parking lot as he exited the store,\u201d according to a criminal complaint filed by Lower Merion Detective Michael Pleasants.<\/p>\n
The victim said that as he exited the store and was walking to his locked vehicle, he observed a younger male wearing a light gray hoodie pulled up over his head approach him from the south side of the store, from behind a container of propane tanks.<\/p>\n
The male, later identified as Stewart, stated to the victim, \u201cGive me your keys,\u201d to which the victim responded, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d according to court papers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this, the suspect pulled up the bottom of his hoodie, reached down, and pulled out an all-black handgun,\u201d Pleasants alleged in the arrest affidavit, adding the victim, upon seeing the firearm, responded, \u201cPlease don\u2019t shoot me.\u201d \u201c(The victim) stated that he feared for his life and dropped the vehicle keys on the ground. The suspect picked them up, got in (the victim\u2019s) Honda Accord and drove away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stolen 2021 Honda Accord was last seen making a right turn onto southbound City Avenue.<\/p>\n
A short time later, police found the unoccupied vehicle stopped on City Avenue. Officers later observed a person matching the description of the thief walking northbound on Malvern Avenue and attempted to conduct a pedestrian stop but the suspect fled on foot.<\/p>\n
As the suspect fled, \u201che appeared to retrieve an item from his waistband area,\u201d detectives alleged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suspect also dropped bags of suspected controlled substances, which were later recovered,\u201d Pleasants alleged.<\/p>\n
A firearm, a semiautomatic 9mm Polymer 80 handgun with no serial number, was recovered in the bushes in the 7300 block of Malvern Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe firearm was loaded with a magazine and ammunition, with a round in the chamber. The firearm is consistent with the weapon the suspect utilized during the robbery,\u201d Pleasants alleged.<\/p>\n
A perimeter was established in the area and a K9 officer located Stewart in a wooded area to the rear of West End Drive, about 100 feet north of the entrance to Morris Park.<\/p>\n
The victim subsequently identified Stewart as the person who stole his vehicle.<\/p>\n
Stewart was 17 at the time and, by law, was not permitted to possess a firearm.<\/p>\n
When he was taken into custody, Stewart was found in possession of three foil packages of marijuana. Additional similar packages of controlled substances, marijuana and ecstasy were located along the route that Stewart took while fleeing officers on foot, according to court papers.<\/p>\n
Other charges of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, firearms not to be carried without a license, theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property were dismissed against Stewart as part of the plea agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORRISTOWN \u2014 A Delaware County man was sent to prison for the armed carjacking of a man outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[46,182,183,185,184,186,139,28,10918],"class_list":["post-150460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}