(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Cushing man, who is a convicted child molester, avoided a jury trial this week by pleading guilty Friday to robbing a Cushing convenience store with a gun — that he had stolen in a car burglary.
Aaron Scott Halencak, 27, who had been in the Payne County Jail on $250,000 bond since his arrest a month after the hold-up, was ordered held without bail Friday pending his sentencing on Sept. 26.
Cushing Police Sgt. Adam Harp was sent with Cushing Police Officer Rachel Hentges to the Maveric Mini Mart on Cherry Street about 7:45 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2013, regarding a robbery, court records show.
The victim “was visibly shaken and said that she had her back turned to the door behind the counter, and when she turned around that she had a customer with a gun pointed in her face,” the sergeant wrote in an affidavit.
The victim said the robber appeared to be white “from what she could see because he was wearing a black bandana over his face with a black jacket-type hoodie,” the affidavit said.
The victim said the robber “told her to give him all the money out of the drawer, which she did and then after she gave him the money asked her to lift the drawer tray up to see if she had any other money underneath the drawer, which she did not,” the affidavit said.
She said the robber took $339.81 in cash and left the store eastbound on foot, the affidavit said.
Security footage from the store showed a slender man, between 6′ to 6’5′ — with a semi-automatic handgun in his right hand — had a black-colored hoodie over his head, a black bandana over his face, and a stocking cap during the robbery, the affidavit said.
The robber, who was wearing dark jeans and tan work boots, had gloves on both hands, the affidavit said.
“Through Chief Folden’s investigation of a different robbery, information was developed that Aaron Halencak may have been the person that committed the robbery at the Maveric Mini Mart,” the affidavit said.
A month later when the Cushing police chief and the sergeant went to a Stillwater residence to talk to Halencak, “I told Aaron that our agency had security footage from the store and also had audio from the store where you could hear what the suspect was saying to the clerk,” Harp wrote in his affidavit.
“I asked Aaron if he would be willing for me to record his voice and later compare that voice from the audio of the suspect from the robbery and he agreed. Aaron appeared to be very nervous when he saw the statements that I wanted him to say,” Harp wrote in his affidavit.
“I begin to ask Aaron questions about the robbery, and he told me that it was not him. I told Aaron that based upon the information that we received and listening to the audio from the robbery that I believed that it was in fact his voice, since I am familiar with him,” Harp wrote in his affidavit.
A pair of tan work boots that the robber was wearing in the security footage had been seized by the Cushing police chief on the previous day in an unrelated robbery, the affidavit said.
“While speaking with Aaron, he admitted that he was the person that committed the robbery at the Maveric Mini Mart in December of 2013. Aaron said that he needed money so that he could drive to California to see his six-year-old daughter,” Harp wrote in his affidavit.
“Aaron said that he picked the Maveric Mini Mart because it was small and that he knew no one would be in there to get hurt and just didn’t think about it — that it just happened,” the affidavit said.
“Aaron said that he parked his gold Pontiac car in the alley behind the store. Aaron said that he had a handgun that had a silver slide over black,” that he said he got that day, the affidavit said.
“Based upon our investigation it was believed that the gun that Aaron used during this robbery was stolen that morning,” about 6 a.m. at the Ice House on Main Street in Cushing — where Halencak had been employed, the affidavit said.
“Aaron said that he went inside the (convenience) store and demanded all the money from the clerk by pointing a gun at the clerk. Aaron said that he did not intend to hurt the clerk and that the gun was not loaded and did not have the clip (magazine) in the gun,” the affidavit said.
“I asked Aaron if the tan work boots that Chief Folden seized (the previous day) were the same tan boots that he wore when he committed the robbery at the Maveric Mini Mart and he said he believes so because that was the only work boots that he owns,” Harp wrote in his affidavit.
Halencak said that after he robbed the store, he went to his house in Cushing and “finished packing and left for California that night to see his daughter,” Harp wrote in his affidavit.
“I asked Aaron what he did with the dark-colored zip-up hoodie that he was wearing during the robbery and he said that he threw it out of the car somewhere on Ninth Street. Aaron said that he was in California for six days, and returned to Cushing,” Harp wrote in his affidavit.
While the Cushing police sergeant was in the process of obtaining an arrest warrant for Halencak, Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Nack “made contact with Aaron because he thought that he was going to flee,” the affidavit sid.
Halencak, who was arrested by the sheriff’s deputy, “admitted to Deputy Nack that he robbed the Maveric Mini Mart with the stolen gun,” and provided the hoodie that he said he wore during the robbery, the affidavit said.
According to court records, Halencak was previously convicted of sex with a minor child in Fresno County, California.
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