Robberies get man 18 years

LITTLE ROCK — A 20-year-old Mabelvale man behind two ambush robberies in Little Rock last year has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Sentencing papers filed Wednesday show Keitricc Lamar Saine pleaded guilty to four counts each of aggravated robbery and felony theft in exchange for the 18-year term from Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson. The charges together carry a potential life sentence. Saine will have to serve 12 ½ years before he can qualify for parole.

Saine has been jailed since his March 2019 arrest, about 2½ weeks after the Feb. 15, 2019, armed robberies.

The hold-ups were about two hours apart and at apartment complexes three blocks apart, court filings show. Both sets of victims were lured in with promises of buying a cellphone from a seller they had found on Facebook.

The first two victims were Adriano Litzinger and Steven Hector, both of Russellville, who were robbed about 7 p.m. at Fairfield Apartments, 1912 Green Mountain Drive.

When they met the seller, he pulled a gun. Litzinger ran and called 911 while the robber pushed Hector to the ground and put the weapon to Hector’s back and searched his pockets before leaving with Hector’s cellphone.

Husband and wife Allen and Mariah Bailey of Vilonia were the next to be robbed.

They had gone to Pleasant Pointe Apartments to meet the phone seller. The robber put his gun to Allen Bailey’s chest while going through his pockets. Mariah Bailey got out of the car, and the robber pushed the husband and wife to the ground and started to go through her pockets as well.

Allen Bailey fought with the man trying to get the gun, but the robber bit him on the arm and kicked his legs, then put Mariah Bailey in a chokehold. She told police she was stabbed in the left shoulder during the fracas.

The gunman pulled her next to the car, grabbed her purse from the vehicle and ran when the Baileys called out to a passing motorist for help.