- March 4, 2025
Jacquez Roland, who zip-tied and robbed the clerk of at Sharps Discount Liquor in 2011, was sentenced on Friday to 40 years in prison, the maximum allowed by law. He will not be eligible for parole.
During his May trial, Roland was found guilty of the Oct. 30, 2011, robbery. In that incident, he entered the store alone, his face obscured by a motorcycle helmet, and pulled a gun (later, investigators would learn it was fake) on Rebecca Crowley as she worked.
After she emptied the store’s cash register, he used zip ties to bind her hands and feet and left her the ground in the store.
Roland was convicted of robbery with a weapon, a first-degree felony; grand theft, a third-degree felony; false imprisonment, a third-degree felony; and battery. Circuit Judge Melissa Moore Stens sentenced Roland to 30 years for the first charge and five years each for both false imprisonment and grand theft.
Because he received credit for time served, and because he spent more time in jail awaiting trial than the maximum sentence for battery allowed, he did not receive an additional sentence on that charge.
Roland’s defense attorney, Regina Nunnally, asked that Roland be given concurrent sentences, for a total of 30 years.
But because Roland had been released from prison less than three years before the 2011 robbery, prosecution asked that Roland be sentenced as a prison releasee reoffender. Moore Stens complied, so Roland will serve consecutive sentences, for a total of 40 years.
For Crowley, the news is a relief. She had a hard time describing the man who robbed her afterward: All she could remember was his eyes.
“I’ll never forget those eyes,” she said Friday after Roland’s sentencing hearing, her own eyes brimming with tears. “Two years later, I still take those eyes to bed with me every night.”
Just before he was sentenced, Roland asked to address Moore Stens, against the advice of his attorney. He felt that prosecutors had not proven their case, he said. Investigators retrieved items used in the robbery in the woods nearby. All of them tested positive for Roland’s DNA, but they also had traces of another person’s DNA on them as well, which Roland said was insufficient proof.
Roland also contested conflicting descriptions witnesses gave of the suspect — Crowley at one time described the robber as dark-skinned and about 5 feet, 9 inches. Roland is 6 feet, 3 inches, and said he does not consider himself “dark skinned.”
Finally, he said, the crux of the case was a missing surveillance tape from a fast food restaurant close to the liquor store. Shortly after the crime, a man entered the store, out of breath and nervous. Investigators saw the footage from that tape after the robbery, but the tape was somehow either lost or corrupted between that time and Roland’s trial.
“Had that tape been brought (into evidence), I would have been acquitted of this crime because the jury would have seen for themselves that the person who was in the tape was not the person who was standing before them (in court),” Roland said.
Security footage of the robbery itself was shown repeatedly during Roland’s trial, although the man in the tape was indecipherable beneath his helmet. Witnesses and attorneys made references to the missing surveillance tape, which Roland said was unfair.
“I feel I was railroaded,” Roland said. “White girl gets robbed; black guy takes the fall. That’s how it works in this county. I’ve seen it again and again.”
Moore Stens did not comment on Roland’s remarks before she imposed her sentence. Roland shook his head as she spoke.
By contrast, Crowley, who attended all of Roland’s many hearings in the two years leading up to his trial, smiled weakly as she walked out of the courtroom for the last time.
