Oct. 3—A Chicago woman began to cry Tuesday afternoon in a federal courtroom in Scranton when she learned she will not go to prison for her role in an armed robbery six years ago at a South Side pharmacy.
Nicola Dunlap-Hill was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Robert D. Mariani to the five months and 16 days she already has been incarcerated.
Dunlap-Hill, 26, was behind the wheel of a getaway car May 21, 2018, while two other people — Coreon House and Rashad Coleman — took part in a robbery at the CVS on Moosic Street.
House, of Indianapolis, pointed a gun at a pharmacist, bound the victim’s hands with zip ties and stole oxycodone, morphine and Xanax. Coleman, of Indianapolis, acted as a lookout.
House, 25, and Coleman, 30, are serving sentences of 10 years and 5 months in federal prisons.
Dunlap-Hill, Mariani found, did not know the two men planned to commit robbery until shortly before the deed.
She pleaded guilty in January 2021 to a count of aiding and abetting the armed robbery of a pharmacy. The maximum penalty for the offense is 25 years in prison.
In comments to the judge, she apologized to the pharmacist who was bound and robbed and said she was embarrassed by her actions.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. O’Hara said Dunlap-Hill never was in trouble before the robbery and has not been in trouble since. During several years under supervision, she never tested positive on a drug test.
She is a single mother raising a 7-year-old girl and earned a license as a nursing assistant in Illinois.
She is a “law abiding citizen who made a very stupid mistake” by driving around two men whose intentions she did not know, Mariani said.
Dunlap-Hill must spend three years under supervised release. She has to help repay $14,507.90 in restitution.
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