A 33-year-old Allston woman will spend up to seven years in state prison for shooting a clerk during a botched gas station robbery in 2019.
Ashley Weaver, 33, of Allston, pleaded guilty to indictments charging her with carrying an illegal firearm, armed assault with intent to rob, and assault and battery. She was sentenced in Fall River Superior Court to five to seven years in state prison.
“This was a very violent assault in which the defendant shot the clerk during a struggle. The defendant has a history of violence and was a suspect in other similar robbery attempts in Massachusetts,” Bristol District Attorney Thomas Quinn III said. “I am very happy the clerk recovered but this is another example of why you do not take matters into your own hands.”
The charge stems from one event during a night of planned robbery in southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In the Attleboro case, as well as at least one more in Providence, R.I., Weaver attempted to rob gas stations while dressed in a mask depicting either a monkey or an ape in the early morning hours of May 20, 2019.
In Attleboro, surveillance footage shows Weaver walking up to a Mobil gas station on Newport Avenue sometime before 2:30 a.m., which is when police received the call reporting a person had been shot.
The station’s clerk was taking out the trash when he saw, according to the Bristol District Attorney’s office, “what he thought was a young, black male approached him brandishing a gun and demanding money.”
The clerk said he didn’t think the gun was real, so he chased after the monkey-mask bandit and put her in a headlock. Then, he told police, he “heard a loud bang and felt a pain in his stomach and realized he had been shot.”
That same night, Weaver successfully robbed a Gulf gas station on Plainfield Street in Providence. She was wearing the monkey mask and got the station attended to fork over $800 when she pointed her .40 caliber pistol, according to Rhode Island authorities.
A Providence grand jury indicted her on a slew of robbery and firearm charges on Aug. 1, 2019. She pleaded guilty to four counts on Jan. 3, 2020, and Superior Court Justice Robert D. Krause sentenced Weaver to 20 years with seven years to serve at the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) and the balance suspended with probation.
