A Portland man convicted by a Clark County jury last month in an armed robbery of a Vancouver pharmacy was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison.
Keandre D. Brown, 20, was facing about 45 to 50 years in prison in the August 2016 robbery at Mill Plain Pharmacy. But Judge Bernard Veljacic vacated some of the firearm enhancements the jury had found — which would have allowed for the longer-than-normal sentence — following a joint recommendation from the prosecution and defense.
Brown was convicted Sept. 11 of first-degree robbery, four counts of second-degree assault and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm in Superior Court. Jurors also returned a special verdict finding that he was armed with a firearm during the assaults and that the robbery was committed against a pharmacy.
His defense attorney, Steve Rucker, argued Tuesday that the court should take Brown’s young age into consideration when handing down the sentence and said anything more than 30 years would be too harsh and severe of a punishment. Brown was 19 at the time of the crime.
Deputy Prosecutor James Smith said that he didn’t necessarily join Rucker in recommending the lighter sentence because of Brown’s age. The sentence seemed appropriate given the totality of the circumstances, he said.
On Aug. 22, 2016, Vancouver police responded to 614 Mill Plain Blvd., for a report of an armed robbery. Witnesses said that two men entered the pharmacy with handguns and demanded items, including oxycodone, according to a probable cause affidavit.
After the robbery, an officer responding to the area saw two men run toward a gold-colored car, but they were gone by the time he arrived, the affidavit states.
A witness took down the license plate number and that vehicle was later caught running a red light in Portland, court records said. A photo taken when the vehicle ran the red light matched that of Keith B. Woody Jr., Brown’s cousin and 25-year-old co-defendant in the case, according to court documents.
Officers with the Portland Police Bureau later found the vehicle abandoned in Portland, and a fingerprint taken from inside the car came back as a match to Brown, the affidavit states.
In October 2016, members of the U.S. Marshals Service stopped a vehicle in Vancouver that was occupied by Woody and Brown, and they were taken into custody.
Woody was sentenced last month to 13 1/2 years in the Mill Plain Pharmacy robbery, a June 2016 robbery at the Walgreens Pharmacy at 2903 N.E. Andresen Road and for attacking a fellow inmate at the Clark County Jail. He pleaded guilty in the cases as part of a plea deal.
Brown declined to make a statement during sentencing.
He was additionally ordered to pay about $11,000 in restitution, Smith said.
