A Quakertown area man will serve up to seven years in state prison for robbing a gas station in Sellersville and later spitting in the face of a police officer who helped arrest him.
Jordan M. McGinnis, 31, of Richland Township, Bucks County, was sentenced to three to seven years in state prison.
Jordan M. McGinnis, 31, of the 300 block of E. Paletown Road, Richland Township, was sentenced Friday to three to seven years behind bars and a consecutive three-year term of probation for the September 2018 robbery of a Gulf gas station on N. Main Street in Sellsersville and for spitting on a Pennridge police officer during his arrest.
Judge Raymond F. McHugh also ordered McGinnis to pay restitution and undergo mental health treatment, according to a news release about the sentencing from the Bucks County District Attorney’s office.
McGinnis pleaded guilty in April to counts of robbery, aggravated harassment by prisoner, theft and receiving stolen property, the DA’s office said.
According to authorities, the robbery he committed last fall began when McGinnis entered the gas station with flannel fabric pulled over his face at about 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 23. He then told the store clerk he had a knife and demanded money.
Prosecutors said the clerk then handed over $100 from the register and McGinnis fled.
The following morning, a Pennridge Regional Police officer stopped McGinnis in the area of Rt. 313 and Old Bethlehem Road because duct tape was covering his car’s license plate, the DA’s office said.
When he was asked by a Perkasie borough police officer why his license plate was covered, McGinnis told him he was being followed and felt safer that way, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.
When officers noted that McGinnis appeared to be wearing the same clothes as the suspect in the previous day’s robbery, they questioned him about his whereabouts at the time, according to the DA’s office.
Police said McGinnis then claimed he had been at home, and said his parents would confirm that. He also said he worked for his parents’ paving company and had had the day off because of bad weather.
According to the DA’s press release, soon after releasing McGinnis from the stop the Perkasie and Pennridge officers went to McGinnis’s home and met with his mother, who told them her son had called off work and had in fact been out the evening before.
Police said she also confirmed that a security camera photo showing the robbery suspect was a picture of her son.
While the officers were still at the residence, McGinnis returned home, was taken into custody and placed in a patrol vehicle, and began spitting, according to authorities.
A spit mask was placed on him but he managed to remove it during the drive to the Perkasie Borough Police Department, and as the Pennridge officer helped McGinnis out of the vehicle in order to take him inside the building, McGinnis spit in his face, the DA’s news release indicated.
According to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, the case was investigated by Perkasie Borough Police and prosecuted by Asst. District Attorney Megan A. Hunsicker.