A Union Township man has been sentenced to 11 years in state prison for robbing a gas station attendant at knifepoint a little less than three years ago, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Monday.
Deven Montague, 22, must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence before the possibility of parole under New Jersey’s No Early Release Act, according to the terms set down by state Superior Court Judge Scott J. Moynihan.
It was a little before 4:30 a.m. on September 14, 2013 when Union Township Police Department officers responded to Power Gas Station on Vauxhall Road on a report of a robbery, according to Union County Assistant Prosecutor Armando Suarez, who prosecuted the case.
The station attendant told the officers that an unidentified male brandished a knife, threatening him, and demanded all of the money in the cash register and whatever money he had on his person, Suarez said.
The suspect then obtained a quantity of cash and fled the area on foot. However, using video surveillance footage, investigators managed to identify Montague as the suspect, and he was arrested less than two weeks later.
Montague was indicted in April 2014 and pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and a related weapons offense in June 2016.
Despite an absence of any prior adult convictions, Judge Moynihan cited the need to deter Montague and others from committing violent offenses such as these upon issuing the 11-year sentence.