Man to serve 22 years for two robberies

A Richmond man who was still on probation for a robbery in North Carolina when he separately robbed two Chesterfield County women last winter will spend 22 years behind bars.

Travoris M. Courtney, 25, who served in the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, was sentenced today by Chesterfield Circuit Judge T.J. Hauler on convictions of robbery, abduction, conspiracy to commit robbery, carjacking and using a firearm in a felony.

According to authorities, Courtney and an accomplice, Hugh O. Plunkett, 22, cruised Chesterfield neighborhoods in December and January looking for residents to rob.

In one case, the two men accosted an 81-year-old woman as she knocked on the door of a friend's home Dec. 17 at Briarwood Hearth condominiums off Huguenot Road.

They ordered her back into her car and forced her to drive to an ATM, where she was threatened at gunpoint to withdraw $800. She was then ordered to return to Briarwood, where the men took her purse and car before fleeing.

Plunkett, who played a lesser role, pleaded guilty to both robberies and was sentenced last month to 17 years in prison.

For details, see tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch. -- Mark Bowes