PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Jason Wayne Pleau pleaded guilty Wednesday to robbing and shooting to death a gas station manager outside a Woonsocket bank in an agreement that keeps him in jail for life but spares him the death penalty.
Wearing prison khakis and visibly plumper than past appearances, Pleau, 35, admitted to demanding "Give me the dough" of gas station manager David Main as Main went to deposit the station's earnings the morning of Sept. 20, 2010. Pleau shot Main as he ran toward the bank, leaving him at the entrance with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
Pleau and his two accomplices then split $12,500, prosecutors said.
"Do you agree those are the facts of the case?" U.S. District Court Judge William Smith said. "Yes," Pleau responded.
Main's family members packed the courtroom. Many wept as Assistant U.S. Attorney Adi Goldstein recited the facts prosecutors would have proven at trial.
"We miss our brother. She misses her son," Main's sister Deborah Smith said afterwards, tears streaking her face as she stood beside their mother.
Pleau's plea agreement was an abrupt turnaround in the case. Governor Chafee, an opponent of the death penalty, refused to turn Pleau over to federal custody, taking his effort all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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