Man who bound, robbed adoptive mother gets jail
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » A Media man who tied up his adoptive 80-year-old mother during a home invasion and robbery earlier this year has been sentenced to 8- to 20 years in state prison.
Christopher Dougherty, 46, pleaded guilty in three separate cases Friday before Common Pleas Court Judge James Bradley.
He entered a negotiated guilty plea worked out by Assistant District Attorney Sean McNabb and defense counsel Elliot Marc Cohen to felony counts of robbery and burglary with a person present in the home invasion, for which he received two consecutive sentences of three to seven years.
Dougherty was arrested by Pennsylvania State troopers in Chester about a week after the Feb. 11 home invasion, in which he forcefully entered the woman’s Middletown home armed with a hammer and bound her to a chair with duct tape.
Authorities had been searching for Dougherty following the robbery, in which he made off with about $1,150 in cash, as well as the victim’s cell phone and 2002 Buick Century. The vehicle was later recovered from an undisclosed location. Troopers received a tip that Dougherty was hiding out in Chester after publicizing the case and took him into custody without incident. He has been in custody since his arrest in lieu of $500,000 cash bail.
Dougherty also pleaded no contest to an August 2019 knife-point robbery of the Aston Smoke Shop on the 4700 block of Pennell Road, for which he was sentenced to an additional two to six years in state prison, running consecutive to the home invasion charges.
According to an affidavit of probable cause in that case, Dougherty entered the shop on the afternoon of July 19, 2019, and asked the clerk for two packages of tube cigarettes. As the clerk turned to retrieve the packages, he felt something in his back and turned to see Dougherty holding a knife, according to the affidavit written by Aston Detective Thomas Giancristoforo.
Dougherty directed the clerk to open the register, but the employee leaped over the counter and tried to run to safety, according to the affidavit. Dougherty allegedly grabbed him and directed him back to the register while holding the knife at him.
After taking an unknown amount of money from the till, Dougherty locked the clerk inside a storage closet at the back of the shop, according to the affidavit. A witness entering the shop allegedly saw Dougherty push the employee into the closet and heard him say, “You disrespected my girl today.”
Dougherty then exited the shop with several cartons of cigarettes and bag of loose tobacco, according to the affidavit. Giancristoforo obtained images of the robber from surveillance videos and showed them to the Smoke Shop owner, who immediately identified the man as Dougherty, according to the affidavit. The owner said Dougherty had been in the shop earlier that same day wearing the same clothing.
In the third case, Dougherty pleaded to one count of possession of cocaine, an ungraded misdemeanor for which he received no additional prison time.