NEW BOSTON, Texas -A man found guilty by a Bowie County jury this week of a gunpoint convenience store holdup was sentenced by a judge to 40 years in prison for the robbery.
Jason Edward Dillinger was found guilty of aggravated robbery Wednesday by a jury in connection with the March 10, 2017, armed robbery of Exxon on New Boston Road in Texarkana, Texas. Dillinger represented himself.
Dillinger entered the store at about 1 a.m., pointed a gun in the clerk's face and demanded that she hand over cash and $20 and $50 scratch-off lottery tickets, according to a probable cause affidavit used to create the following account. Video surveillance showed that the robber was the passenger in a car being driven by a man wearing a hoodie and that the passenger, later identified as Dillinger, spoke to another man before entering the store and committing the robbery.
Detectives with the Texarkana, Texas, Police Department were able to identify the man who spoke to Dillinger in the parking lot before the robbery. That man was able to identify Dillinger. Dillinger's driver, David Lee Cook, was arrested in connection with the robbery as well.
When officers went to Dillinger's mother's home to arrest him, Dillinger refused to come out of the house and attempted to hide evidence from the Exxon robbery. After taking Dillinger into custody, investigators discovered that Dillinger had attempted to hide stolen lottery tickets in a bag in his mother's bedroom and under her mattress.
After being convicted by the jury, Dillinger asked that his punishment be decided by 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart. Because of prior felony convictions, Dillinger faced an enhanced punishment range of 15 to 99 years or life in prison.
During the punishment phase of trial, Lockhart heard testimony concerning Dillinger's earlier criminal episodes. Dillinger was arrested by police in Nash, Texas, in 2011 after assaulting his wife near a McDonald's. Dillinger was arrested after his wife entered the restaurant with a torn shirt and bloody nose and employees called police.
In 2013 Dillinger was arrested for driving while intoxicated, third or more, after a single vehicle crash on George Thomas Road. Dillinger denied he was the driver at the time of his arrest but showed signs of injury and the car's key in his pocket. When taken into custody, Dillinger became combative and had to be escorted from the patrol car to the jail while restrained in a wheel chair.
Also considered by Lockhart was Dillinger's participation in a purse snatching in the Albertson's grocery store parking lot on Richmond Road in Texarkana, Texas. A woman left her purse in her cart while she was placing a poinsettia she'd bought for her neighbor in her car. While she was managing the plant, Dillinger grabbed the woman's purse and ran to a waiting car.
"The defendant robbed, at gunpoint, a young, working mother during her graveyard shift at one of our local convenience stores. Far from uncommon, the state presented evidence during the punishment phase of more than twenty years of aggressive, criminal and outright lawless behavior from this defendant, justifying his 40-year term of imprisonment," Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp said. "The District Attorney's office appreciates the jury's swift guilty verdict and Judge Lockhart's sentence, both of which will keep our community safe from this violent criminal."