Chicago man sentenced to five years for Bartlett robbery

A Cook County judge sentenced a Chicago teen to five years in prison Monday after the 18-year-old admitted he robbed a Bartlett convenience store in September, 2009.

In exchange for Martez Easter’s guilty plea, prosecutors amended the charges from a class X armed robbery to aggravated robbery, a class 1 offense punishable by four to 15 years in prison.

Martez entered the store in the early morning hours of Sept. 26, 2009, and purchased chips and cookies, authorities said. He demanded the clerk hand over money from two registers and left with several hundred dollars in cash but without the items he purchased, which police sent out for fingerprint analysis.

Easter’s fingerprints matched those found on the chip and cookie bags, authorities said. That evidence combined with surveillance video footage led to the robbery charges, authorities said.

Several weeks after the robbery, Easter was arrested on charges of attempted murder, court records show. Prosecutors dismissed the attempted murder charge last June in exchange for Easter pleading guilty to aggravated discharge of a firearm. He was sentenced to the Cook County Sheriff’s Department boot camp on that charge.