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  • Timothy Lamont Ayers

    Timothy Lamont Ayers

November 20, 2012

Mankato man who robbed cab driver at knife point gets 42 months

By Dan Nienaber Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO — A Mankato man who robbed a cab driver at knife point in December has been sentenced to 42 months in prison.

Timothy Lamont Ayers, 41, was sentenced Tuesday by District Court Judge Bradley Walker. He was charged with aggravated robbery after the Dec. 8 incident, but that charge was reduced to simple robbery in plea agreement reached last month.

Ayers will receive credit for 331 days he has served in jail since his arrest on Dec. 26. With credit for good time, Ayers could be released from prison in about a year.

A Kato Cab driver called police at about 3:30 a.m. Dec. 8 to report a customer had threatened him with a knife and robbed him at the top of the Main Street hill. The suspect had run away after the robbery, but the driver said he had given the same man a ride earlier that night and twice the night before.

The driver reported his customer requested him by name when he called for a ride before the robbery. He also told police the robber asked him to drive to the downtown Hy-Vee store and wait while he used the ATM machine. Once the man returned to the cab, he asked the driver to take him to an address at the top of Main Street. The man then held a knife to the cab driver’s throat and demanded all of his money.

Police used photographs taken by the ATM machine to identify Ayers as the suspect.

A warrant was issued for Ayer’s arrest and he was seen walking on Stoltzman Road Dec. 26. He allegedly ran when police attempted to stop him and it took help from a police dog to find him hiding in the window well of a house in the 300 block of State Street.

 Ayers is still facing a misdemeanor charge of fleeing police on foot for the chase.

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