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Robber gets six years

By Keith Lacey A man who robbed a jewelry store with a loaded handgun during a brazen, frightening daytime robbery 14 months ago was given a six-year penitentiary term Thursday.
By Keith Lacey

A man who robbed a jewelry store with a loaded handgun during a brazen, frightening daytime robbery 14 months ago was given a six-year penitentiary term Thursday.

Justice Robert Del Frate sentenced Craften Steven Miller, 31, to 42 months in a federal penitentiary on top of 15 months Miller has spent in pre-trial custody at the Sudbury District Jail.

Del Frate credited Miller with two days time served for every day spent in pre-trial custody, bringing the total sentence to six years behind bars.

Court heard Miller and an accomplice, who has never been caught, wore ski masks and broke into Gold Direct Jewelry on Lasalle Boulevard the morning of July 27, 2001.

Miller was holding a loaded .38-calibre handgun. He pointed it at the store?s owner and a female employee. Miller and his partner stole $240,000 in jewelry and more than $3,000 in cash receipts. The store?s owner and employee were tied up, blindfolded, bound and placed in a back room.

Court heard Miller had a previous armed robbery conviction in Kitchener in 1995, where he received a two-year jail sentence. After getting out he attended Cambrian College and graduate with a diploma in American Sign Language. Del Frate warned Miller his was a serious crime in which two innocent people were traumatized by having a loaded gun pointed at them.

?I don?t know sir if you appreciate the seriousness of what you did that day,? said Del Frate. ?But if you haven?t, you are going to have a long time to think about it.

?What you did on that day could easily have led to more serious charges...If the victims had not co-operated, the only thing I can think of is you would have shot them.?

Miller?s criminal record includes a virtually unbroken series of assaults, robberies and other serious crimes since 1988.

The judge warned Miller to straighten his life out. ?The next time you appear before any judge in this jurisdiction or anywhere in Canada?you are looking at double digit penitentiary time and if you hurt someone you are looking at life,? he said. ?The only person who can change this will be you.?

Assistant Crown attorney Diana Fuller told the court the store owner managed to escape and contacted police, who showed up on the scene almost immediately.

Two officers with Greater Sudbury Police noticed a black male matching Miller?s description outside a New Sudbury music store minutes later.

One officer knew Miller by name and noticed he was carrying a packsack, his shoes and jeans were covered in mud and he wasn?t wearing a shirt.

Miller told the officers he was returning home and had books in the packsack. Inside the packsack, they found the loaded handgun, more than $200,000 in jewelry, cash, handcuffs, gloves, four extra bullets for the gun, the store owner?s wallet and identification, spray paint and tie wraps, said Fuller.

Most of the stolen merchandise was recovered and returned.