Shevlino accepts plea deal

Date: 1/15/2008

Ex-Wando student takes 10-year sentence

By Schuyler Kropf

The Post and Courier

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Former Wando High School student Sean Shevlino mouthed "I love you" to his family as he was taken away to begin a 10-year sentence for two armed robberies that stunned Mount Pleasant in 2006.

"I apologize to everyone I've hurt," Shevlino, 17, said as he prepared for his time in an adult state prison. "I plan to survive the next 10 years with help from my family, my friends and God."

Shevlino's sentence came as part of a negotiated plea with 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson. It covers the armed holdups of a Food Lion supermarket and a Subway sandwich shop at the start of the 2006 school year.

Other Wando teens helped in the crimes, but it was Shevlino who wore a mask and threatened employees with a pellet pistol authentic enough to pass as a real handgun.

Shevlino was given 10 years for each robbery but will serve his sentences concurrently. He must serve at least 85 percent of his time before becoming eligible for parole. A maximum sentence could have meant 30 years behind bars.

On Friday, the plea deal looked dead as Shevlino opted not to appear while co-defendant Michael Anthony, 19, a lookout in the two robberies, received the same 10-year deal. The no-show meant the offer was "off the table," Wilson said.

But the offer stood Monday because nothing had significantly changed over the weekend, Wilson said.

Inside the courtroom, members of Shevlino's family, along with about two dozen friends, sobbed almost constantly. His father, Peter Shevlino, attempted to tell Circuit Judge Benjamin Culbertson what the lock-up of his son meant but was overcome with emotion and unable to continue after a few sentences.

A single, three-week period of bad decisions cost his son disproportionately, Shevlino told the judge.

Outside the courtroom, Shevlino said Wilson's decision to treat his son as an adult was politically motivated because of her Republican candidacy for the solicitor's post in the June primary.

"Fifteen- or 16-year-old children should not go to circuit court," he added. "They should be treated like the juveniles they are."

Reached later, Wilson denied the allegation that politics played any role in how the case played out. The plea offer had been set in motion months ago when former Solicitor Ralph Hoisington was still alive, she said. The Mount Pleasant Police Department endorsed the offer as well, she said.

Wilson said she understood the family's grief but said she has dealt with other teenagers of the same age in the same fashion for similar crimes.

Shevlino's attorney, Frank Cornely, said he didn't think Wilson was trying to make an example of the teenager. Instead, he shifted the discussion to state lawmakers, who have enacted hard-line mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes.

The downside, he said, is that the law doesn't allow for other considerations to be factored in at sentencing, including age. Shevlino was less than a month past his 16th birthday when the crimes occurred.

"He wasn't aware of what he was doing," Cornely said, adding this was the "hardest case I've ever had to handle."

Shevlino admitted to being the gunman in the Aug. 26, 2006, robbery of the Food Lion on South Morgan's Point Road. He entered the store wearing an orange mask around 11 p.m. and ordered an employee at gunpoint to open the safe. Shevlino took money and fled, later splitting the take.

Other Wando students were in cars nearby acting as lookouts. They already have pleaded to accessory and conspiracy charges and will be sentenced later.

In the second robbery, on Sept. 4, 2006, Shevlino robbed a Subway on Coleman Boulevard, wielding the gun and wearing a white hockey mask. He took cash. Anthony was with him.

The teens were arrested after police received a tip in connection to the theft of a BMW.

Shevlino's friends cried and hugged after the sentencing was through.

"This is wrong," one Wando student said.

"Putting him in prison is not going to help anyone," said another college-age friend.

Reach Schuyler Kropf at skropf@postandcourier.comor 937-5551.

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