The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Gerard Gaffney, age 19, of Mount Ranier, Maryland, was sentenced on April 26, 2021, to 84 months’ imprisonment by Chief U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones for his role as the driver in a 2019 armed robbery of a Rite Aid pharmacy in Dauphin County.
According to Acting United States Attorney Bruce D. Brandler, Gaffney and his codefendants drove to the Rite Aid on Union Deposit Road on March 28, 2019, with plans to rob it. With Gaffney waiting outside in the getaway car, three masked robbers entered the pharmacy and pointed weapons at the heads of staff, forcing them to surrender drugs from the pharmacy before escaping to the getaway car sitting outside.
Police responded to reports of the armed robbery and pursued the getaway car as it sped away from police. The car crashed and three of the occupants were apprehended, including Gaffney. Police recovered bottles of pharmaceuticals stolen from the Rite Aid. They also recovered a stolen firearm from codefendant, David Marable.
Marable had previously entered a guilty plea to the robbery and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of the robbery and was sentenced 10 years imprisonment.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Lower Paxton Police Department, and the Swatara Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Consiglio is prosecuting the case.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.
