Man Gets 3 years in Oxycontin Robbery

A 21-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in state prison by a Placer County judge after pleading no contest to a robbery in which he took $5,000 worth of the prescription painkilling drug OxyContin.

Pierre Jovan Williams, who also pleaded no contest to battery on a correctional officer, received the sentence July 30 from Superior Court Judge Colleen Nichols.

Prosecutor Jeff Wilson of the Placer County District Attorney’s Office said in a sentencing memorandum that Williams fled with 10 bottles of OxyContin during the March 18, 2008, robbery of Walgreens on Douglas Boulevard in Roseville.

Wearing a hooded sweatshirt and holding something in his pocket, the robber twice whispered to a pharmacist, ‘I have a gun. Give me everything,’ according to Wilson’s memorandum.

The robbery occurred during a period when at least six other stores or pharmacies in Sacramento, El Dorado and Placer counties were hit by a robber who took OxyContin, Wilson wrote.

An informant disclosed Williams’ name to a Folsom police detective, leading to an investigation and the arrest of Williams, Wilson wrote.

While in the Placer County jail, Williams fought with an inmate and with a correctional officer, resulting in the charge of battery, Wilson said.

The prosecutor said arrest warrants have been issued against Williams for similar robberies involving the taking of OxyContin in other jurisdictions.

‘The robbing of stores for drugs is a crime that has been on the increase,’ Wilson said. ‘What is clear from the sentencing just given in Placer County is that if you rob a store or pharmacy to obtain drugs, you will go to prison.’