By Brandi Makuski

The oldest of three teenagers involved in robbing a Rosholt gas station is going to prison.

Randall J. Lehman Jr., 17, was sentenced on Tuesday to prison for his role in last November’s armed robbery of The Store gas station on Grand Ave. in Rosholt.

Lehman was an accomplice and the getaway driver — in an SUV stolen from Stevens Point — for two other boys, ages 15 and 16.

The trio initially intended to rob the gas station using a knife, but “chickened out at the last minute,” according to Chief Deputy Dan Kontos.

The group later shoplifted BB guns from a local retail store, then returned to the gas station and went through with the robbery.

At Lehman’s direction, the two younger boys entered the gas station, wearing masks, and threatened the clerk by pointing a gun at her head, demanding cash and cigarettes. They got away with just under $250 and 10 packs of cigarettes.

District Attorney Louis Molepske played the store surveillance video of the robbery during the May 16 sentencing.

The store clerk on duty testified she is still dealing with trauma from the incident, and that she still “was waiting for the bullet to enter her body.”

Lehman was convicted on several counts but received concurrent sentences for charges of taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent, fleeing an officer and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was sentenced to five years in prison and five years of extended supervision for armed robbery.

Lehman would be eligible for early release after four years if he opts to participate in Challenge Academy and a substance abuse program.

Lehman’s two juvenile co-defendants were adjudicated delinquent and sent to Lincoln Hills School for Boys for five years earlier this year.

Molepske called the crime “tremendously violent”, saying it would lasting effects on the victim and the community.

“Ultimately, the defendant chose the easy way to ‘make money’ and he and his co-defendants now will serve their time to better themselves and to protect the public,” he said.