Downstate man gets 12 years for robbing 73-year-old woman

MARION, Ill. — A southern Illinois man who authorities say hit a 73-year-old woman’s head on the pavement while robbing her has been ordered to spend 12 years in prison.

The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan reports that 24-year-old Justin Null was sentenced Tuesday in Williamson County. Null’s attorney had asked that Null be sentenced to boot camp, but prosecutors pressed for a 20-year sentence.

Null already had pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery.

Authorities say he circled the woman on his bike last spring outside the Marion store where she worked before he grabbed and threatened her, telling her he had a gun. After hitting her head on the pavement, Null made off with her purse and about $250.

Prosecutor Sean de Mello says “this could have been anybody’s grandmother.”