Man sentenced in home-invasion robbery

A man accused in an armed robbery in October at an apartment in the Rose Village neighborhood was sentenced Friday to three years in prison.

Josiah William Rodriguez, 19, pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court to second-degree robbery and second-degree kidnapping in connection with the Oct. 31 incident.

Vancouver police officers were dispatched shortly after 1 a.m. to 2010 E. Fourth Plain Blvd., for a noise complaint. They spoke to two 18-year-old women who said they were just robbed at gunpoint inside their apartment. A witness at the address also told police a third 18-year-old victim was riding his bicycle down the street when he was shot at by an unknown person in a silver vehicle, according to a probable cause affidavit. The teen was uninjured.

One of the three victims told police she was inside the apartment when several armed males wearing masks entered the apartment and took her cellphone and vape pen. The second victim said the men woke her up and demanded her cellphone. When she told them she didn’t have a phone, they ransacked the apartment, according to the affidavit.

The third victim listed in the affidavit jumped out of a second-story window to escape the robbers. He was then shot at about a block from the scene of the robbery, according to the affidavit.

Nearly a month later, on Nov. 19, detectives interviewed 15-year-old Robert D. Knezevich. He said he went to the apartment, armed with a 9mm Ruger, looking for “Stephan.” Knezevich said he kicked the door open and couldn’t find who he was looking for so he took a woman’s personal belongings and left, according to the affidavit.

One of the victims later identified Rodriguez as one of the robbers.

Knezevich is scheduled for trial June 12 in juvenile court. The case for a second co-defendant was exonerated in Superior Court, court records show.