Elyria Township bank robber sent to CBCF program for treatment, counseling

ELYRIA — A man who robbed an Elyria Township bank this summer avoided prison following a sentencing hearing Tuesday, having been given a choice to either get his life together or be put back behind bars. Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Chris Cook ordered Christopher Stanley to report to the Lorain County Jail by noon Dec. 3 to be booked so he can enter the program at the Lorain/Medina Community Based Correctional Facility. Stanley, 43, had been offered the choice of a brief prison stay or the treatment and counseling program for four-to-six months. He told Cook he would opt for the "harder choice" of court-ordered treatment instead of serving 78 days behind bars, then being let out of prison on judicial release as promised. "I'm not going to take the easy way out," he said. "That's the old Chris." Stanley pleaded guilty to robbery, a second-degree felony, on Oct. 10. The passage of the Reagan Tokes Law earlier this year brought indefinite prison sentences for serious offenders back in play, and Cook could have sentenced Stanley to an indefinite prison term of four to 12 years behind bars. Free on bond since Oct. 10, Stanley served 102 days in Lorain County Jail waiting for his case to come to a conclusion. Instead of prison, Cook gave Stanley the CBCF sentence along with a term of five years on community control with random drug and alcohol screening. He also ordered Stanley to pay $500 restitution for the money he got from the robbery, and suspended all other fines and fees. Having served nine months in prison on a felony marijuana trafficking conviction in Ashland County several years ago, Stanley told the judge he doesn't want to go back. "I don't wanna do no more time," he said. "I'm done with this life ... I need help, I need counseling, I can't take jail." Cook took Stanley to task for saying that his criminal actions were "a cry for help" and said his general judicial philosophy is that "if you rob a bank, you need to be incarcerated." He called Stanley's crime "absolutely unacceptable conduct," but also reasoned with him over his life choices. "A cry for help is calling the police. A cry for help is calling the hospital. A cry for help is going to treatment. To the Nord Center, to a treatment center," Cook said. Cook said he would take Stanley's explanations differently if he were 19, 20, 21 or 22, but not a grown man of 43. "You seem sincere," Cook told him. "I hope you're sincere, but why are we having this discussion on the morning of sentencing?" The Lorain native, who is living with his girlfriend in Berea, has a 3-year-old son and maintained his sobriety for 25 years until the death of his brother caused him to start drinking again, he said in court. "I had deaths in the family," Stanley said, explaining why he began drinking again. "I felt very alone and depressed." That's when he did the robbery, going up to a male teller at the Northwest Savings Bank on North Ridge Road in Elyria Township shortly after it opened on July 1 and implied he had a weapon, according to the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office. No weapon was recovered and no one was injured but the teller was frightened by Stanley's demand and handed over $500, Assistant Prosecutor Paul Griffin said. Stanley was located in Columbia Station and arrested without incident after an investigation by the Lorain County Sheriff's Office, with assistance from the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force, State Highway Patrol and FBI. Defense attorney Kenneth Lieux said his client "would like help" and would "work whatever program you'd like him to," he told Cook. Lieux said Stanley told him he wasn't armed during the robbery, and Stanley had an explanation for why the teller thought he'd get shot. "I grew up in the city and I have a certain way of talking," Stanley explained. He said he told the teller to "shoot that money through" and the teller took it to mean he would get shot, Stanley said. Between his guilty plea and his sentencing, Stanley also picked up two additional criminal charges. He was arrested by Berea police on Nov. 18, he said, after he took his girlfriend's car following an argument and went somewhere else to cool off. "I was upset and I thought defusing the situation would be best," he said, explaining he took the car and went to his brother's house with his phone turned off so he was unreachable, not knowing his girlfriend's purse was in the back seat. She only called Berea police out of "tough love," Stanley said, and he was arrested shortly after on a charge of grand theft of a motor vehicle, a fourth-degree felony. Stanley said he is working to get those charges reduced or dismissed, as well as a first-degree misdemeanor charge of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle filed against him in Huron County after he took a family friend's car he had used before and kept it overnight. The program will give Stanley opportunities including anger management and trauma recovery classes, parenting classes and employment training opportunities for his eventual release. Cook said he would not sign the sentencing order until he hears Stanley has turned himself in at the jail. He also banned Stanley from having any contact with Northwest Savings Bank or the teller involved. "There's better opportunities available outside of prison," Cook told Stanley, promising to bring him back into court "to have a discussion about prison" if he commits a new offense in the next week or doesn't turn himself in. "CBCF will be off the table. I'll ship you," to prison, Cook said. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him at @daveobrienCT on Twitter.