DAVENPORT, Iowa — An Indiana teenager was sentenced to serve eight years in prison for robbing five pharmacies in Iowa; two occurred in Davenport.
According to a statement from the Department of Justice, 19-year-old Rontel Nijae Mial pleaded guilty to five counts of robbery. He entered his guilty plea back in September of 2018 and was sentenced on Friday, May 4, 2019.
One of the robberies occurred in November of 2017 at the Walgreens on East Kimberly Road. Mial went into the store with a weapon, went up to the pharmacy counter and demanded drugs, including oxycontin and oxycodone, according to the Department of Justice.
The Department of Justice statement said Mial and a getaway driver left the scene, but were caught because of a GPS tracker that was in one of the stolen pill bottles. Before being apprehended, however, Mial and the driver backed into a squad car, hit a parked car and drove through a yard to get away from officers.
Investigators determined Mial was involved in four other pharmacy robberies: A Davenport Walgreens in November of 2016; a Davenport Walgreens in November of 2017; a CVS in Des Moines in January of 2017; and a Walgreens in Iowa City in November of 2017.
Mial was sentenced to serve eight years in prison. Afterward, he will serve three years of supervised release.