Two men who beat and robbed a Table­land fam­i­ly of more than $.5 mil­lion were each sen­tenced to four years in prison on Thurs­day.

One of their ac­com­plices was shot and killed by the po­lice. Nicholas Alexan­der, 22, and Josi­ah Bobb, 18, both of St Mar­garet’s Vil­lage, Clax­ton Bay, blamed pover­ty for their ac­tions and asked for a sec­ond chance.

They plead­ed guilty in the Rio Claro Mag­is­trates Court to three of­fences of rob­bery with vi­o­lence. Alexan­der al­so plead­ed guilty to pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion.

They were among five men, armed with firearms, who ac­cost­ed a 56-year-old old gro­cery pro­pri­etor at his home around 9.20 pm on April 27.

Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Shazeed Mo­hammed said he was struck on his face sev­er­al times with a gun. They tied him up and stole his $2,000 wrist watch. While they were ran­sack­ing the house, Mo­hammed said the man’s niece and nephew ar­rived home. They were ac­cost­ed by two of the in­trud­ers who forced them in­to their home.

The nephew was beat­en, robbed of his $6,500 cell­phone and tied up while his sis­ter was robbed of her $4,500 cell­phone. When she re­fused to open a safe in the cup­board, she was cuffed in the stom­ach.

She even­tu­al­ly opened it. The rob­bers stole US$70,000, TT$150,000, jew­ellery worth US$1,600 and TT$4,800, as well as a $5,000 Beretta 9 mm pis­tol and 12 rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion, val­ued $50, from in­side the safe.

They then forced the pro­pri­etor to open the gro­cery which is on the same com­pound.

Of­fi­cers of the Table­land Po­lice Sta­tion ar­rived on the scene and while the rob­bers were still at the prop­er­ty but they man­aged to es­cape. Short­ly af­ter, Bobb was found by the po­lice hid­ing in­side the house while Alexan­der was ar­rest­ed while walk­ing along the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road.

A firearm was found tucked in the waist of Alexan­der’s trousers loaded with six rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

A quan­ti­ty of mon­ey and jew­el­ry were found on him while a gold ring was found on Bobb. The US$70,000 and oth­er stolen items were not re­cov­ered. They were charged by PC Ramkissoon and Sgt Anil Sankar.

Their at­tor­ney Petron­il­la Bas­deo said they both came from de­cent and hum­ble sin­gle moth­er homes. Both were un­em­ployed and the fa­ther of one child, she said they were re­cruit­ed by Chris­t­ian Young, the ac­com­plice who was killed, to do the job for “small change.”

She said they were the look­out peo­ple. Both sec­ondary school drop outs, she said they were apolo­getic to their fam­i­lies for em­bar­rass­ing them and to the vic­tims.

Bas­deo said the men hoped for a sec­ond chance to start over as they and no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions or pend­ing mat­ters.

The pros­e­cu­tor said an­oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber who was ward­ed at the nurs­ing home died on Wednes­day af­ter learn­ing of the in­ci­dent. Mag­is­trate Nali­ni Singh sen­tenced them to four years on each of the rob­bery charges while Alexan­der was sen­tenced to one year each on the firearm and am­mu­ni­tion charges.

These sen­tences were or­dered to run con­cur­rent­ly.