photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Victor Gabriel Moreno

A Lawrence man on Monday was sentenced in Douglas County District Court to prison for his part in a 2021 robbery.

The man, Victor G. Moreno, 19, was sentenced by Judge Stacey Donovan to 32 months on each of two counts of felony robbery. Donovan set the sentences to run concurrently. Moreno pleaded guilty in May to the charges as part of a plea agreement that reduced the charges from higher-level aggravated robbery and burglary felonies.

During his sentencing hearing on Monday, Moreno said he was taking responsibility for his actions. In his plea agreement, Moreno declined to ask the court for a lighter sentence or probation for his crime, his defense attorney, Dakota Loomis, said.

The level-five robbery felony is on the border in the Kansas sentencing guidelines between presumptive prison and probation sentences, and the sentencing judge has the discretion to choose.

As the Journal-World previously reported, the charges stem from an incident in which Moreno and two other men robbed a residence at gunpoint in the 900 block of Arkansas Street around 9:15 p.m. on Oct. 13, 2021. The other two men charged are Casey Lamont Williams Jr., 25, of Scranton, Kansas, and Wesley James Tolbert, 26, of Lawrence.

Donovan said she had received numerous letters from Moreno’s friends and relatives, and more than a dozen people appeared in court to also show their support for Moreno.

Moreno’s adoptive father, Cliff Phillips, told the court that prison was too harsh a sentence and asked the judge to choose probation instead. He added that Moreno himself was now a father and that Moreno’s child shouldn’t be deprived of having his father around for the first years of the child’s life.

Moreno also addressed the court but did not ask for leniency. He said that he appreciated his supporters and that he had a better understanding of how his actions could affect the people around him. He said he knew that the choices he made would keep him from the early stages of his child’s life but that the experience had matured him.

“No matter what way you look at it, it’s changed me for the better,” said Moreno, who also expressed “true sorrow for the pain my actions have caused” to the victims and to Moreno’s family.

Donovan said Moreno did not use a weapon during the robbery and did not physically harm the victims. In addition to the prison sentence, Donovan also ordered Moreno to pay more than $5,000 in restitution to the victims.

One of Moreno’s co-defendants, Tolbert, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated robbery and one count of aggravated burglary in June and is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 11. After his conviction, Tolbert was not required to register as a violent offender because the gun he used in the robbery was an airsoft pistol.

photo by: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

Wesley James Tolbert

The other man alleged to have been involved in the robbery, Williams, is still at large after posting a $100,000 bond in this case and skipping a court appearance on Nov. 1, 2021, when he was scheduled to be sentenced in a different burglary case.

Williams has an extensive criminal history, including being convicted of attempted aggravated robbery, and was sentenced to 52 months by Judge Kay Huff in February of 2016.

photo by: Kansas inmate registry

Casey L. Williams Jr. in 2020.