Ex-Carpentersville man gets 20 years for convenience store robberies

Stephen L. Waters should have listened to his stepmother's advice and been a leader.

Instead, the 25-year-old former Carpentersville man chose to follow a friend into a pair of violent convenience store holdups, a path that led a judge Wednesday to sentence him to 20 years in prison.

McHenry County Judge Joseph Condon handed down the two-decade prison term after a hearing in which Waters admitted he would have been better off listening to what his stepmother told him as a child.

"I've made a big mess of my life so far," Waters said. "But it's not too late for me to get it straight."

Waters admitted guilt in October to armed robbery and robbery charges stemming from the Oct. 16, 2006, holdup of a White Hen Pantry and another White Hen robbery in Crystal Lake on Jan. 9, 2007.

In both instances female store clerks were physically assaulted for a total of about $1,150 cash, cigarettes and lottery tickets. The clerk in Cary suffered two broken ribs and an ear laceration that required stitches to close. In the Crystal Lake holdup, the clerk was beaten over the head with a lead pipe.

"All I wanted to do was lay down and die, I was in so much pain," the clerk, Candice Vivaldo, said. Cuts on her scalp required 26 staples to close, Vivaldo said, and she continues to suffer headaches and loss of balance as a result of the attack.

Waters said in court Wednesday that he was sorry for the women's suffering, but that it was his co-defendant, Daniel Charneski of Cary, who assaulted them. He said he committed the robberies because he was out of work and needed to provide for an infant son.

"There is no justification for what I did, but there was no food in the refrigerator and my son had no formula or diapers," he said.

In a surreal moment toward the end of his statement, Waters looked directly at Vivaldo and recognized that the two once had worked side-by-side at a White Hen in Carpentersville, sending the woman walking out of the courtroom in tears.

Condon said Waters had better options for feeding his child.

"You don't have to draw other people's blood when your child is hungry," he said. "The extent to which harm was inflicted on these victims is extremely intolerable. There's simply no reason for it."

Charneski, 22, of Cary, is scheduled to appear in court later this month on pending armed robbery charges.