An Oktibbeha County man is going to prison for 50 years after he was convicted Thursday of shooting a gas station attendant in 2015.
Circuit Judge Lee Howard sentenced Cedric Young, 35, Friday to 25 years for armed robbery, 20 years for attempted murder and five years for possession of a firearm by a felon. Those sentences will run consecutively, and Young will also have to pay court costs.
Young was arrested in 2015 after he entered the Louisville Street B-Quik Food Store, brandished a firearm, demanded money and shot the gas station’s attendant in the head.
The victim, Timothy Crook, died before the start of Young’s trial, but his death was not directly caused by the shooting.
Before Howard handed down the sentence, Assistant District Attorney Marc Amos asked the judge to give Young the maximum penalties because his actions were “violent and heinous” and because of his past conviction of armed robbery.
Young then took to the podium, maintained his innocence and said he sympathized with the Crook family for their loss.
“Judging from the evidence you presented, it was nothing. To the Crook family … I apologize for everything that has taken place in your life and the loss of your child. I pray to God that one day you find the person that did that, but it wasn’t me. And I’ll stand by that to the day I die,” Young said. “According to this court, I am that person that has to be held responsible for that. I will spend the rest of my life, or the rest of the time they give me, pleading my innocence and showing my innocence.”
Young was previously convicted of armed robbery in 2000 and given a 10-year prison sentence and five years of post-release supervision. His post-release supervision was revoked in 2015 after he was arrested for the B-Quik incident. Court documents also state he violated other conditions of his post-release supervision, including leaving Louisiana without a travel permit after his supervision was transferred there in 2010, testing positive for marijuana in 2011 and failing to make a single payment on the $923 he owed Oktibbeha County Circuit Court for prior court costs.
Court records also show Young’s attorney, C. Martin Haug, was appointed to represent him after it was alleged Young threatened to kill a public defender if the attorney “messes him over again.” The county’s other public defenders withdrew from representing Young due to conflicts.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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