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Man gets 11 years for Shoney's robberyBy CHASE SQUIRES © St. Petersburg Times, published October 3, 2000 DADE CITY -- A Dade City man who locked employees of a Wesley Chapel Shoney's restaurant in a walk-in cooler last year and then tried to make off with $1,500 in cash pleaded guilty Monday and accepted an 11-year prison sentence. Joseph Lee Smith, 34, formerly of Wilson Street in Dade City admitted he was the masked robber who walked through the back door of the State Road 54 restaurant while armed with a pistol about 6:20 a.m. on April 26, 1999. Prosecutors said he locked employees in the cooler, forced store manager Melanie DeGarmo to open the safe and then stashed the cash in a backpack and fled. Smith was arrested within minutes after he climbed from a drainage ditch where he was hiding. He emerged directly in front of Pasco sheriff's Deputy Robert Miller, who arrested Smith after watching him toss aside his backpack and mask. Smith had been scheduled for trial Monday on one charge each of kidnapping, armed robbery and aggravated assault. His attorney, A.J. Ivie, told Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb that Smith wanted to accept a plea deal instead of facing trial. But when Cobb asked Smith if he wanted to plead guilty, Smith said he was dissatisfied with his attorney. He changed his mind after prosecutor Linda Babb told the judge that she had agreed to the 11-year sentence as a plea condition but was prepared to break the case into individual charges for each of the five victims if it went to trial. Ivie said if his client was convicted on multiple counts, it would raise the number of points assessed under a state sentencing schedule, effectively increasing the sentence with each conviction. "The offer stands for about two minutes," Babb said. Smith pleaded guilty. "I was wrong for what I did," he told the judge. The 11-year sentence is at the low end of state guidelines. If convicted of kidnapping and armed robbery at trial, Smith faced a maximum sentence of life in prison, Cobb said. There was no testimony or witness statements presented at the brief hearing, but DeGarmo earlier this year had sent a letter to prosecutors detailing what she said was a frightening experience for everyone at the restaurant. "The mental hurt this man has caused is tremendous," DeGarmo wrote. "This man has already upset enough lives, so I hope whoever is in charge of this decision can consider how it felt that morning, not knowning if in a brief instant your whole life would be over due to a few dollars and if we were going to watch each other die."
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