BY LINDA M. RITZER, Staff writer

lritzer@observer-reporter.com

A man convicted of robbing a Monongahela store and beating a clerk with a gun was sentenced Tuesday in Washington County Court to 41/2 to 9 years in state prison.

Pressley B. Lomax, 47, continued to insist he is innocent, even though a jury on June 10 found him guilty of robbery, theft, simple assault and terroristic threats. The conviction was based largely on DNA evidence.

"Five witnesses, and not one of them said I was the guy who committed the crime," Lomax told Judge Katherine B. Emery.

Lomax was convicted of the Sept. 11, 2003, armed robbery of the Family Dollar, 1224 W. Main St., Monongahela.

The clerk, Nancy Rostcheck, was found in a rear room and had been beaten with the barrel of a handgun, then bound and gagged by a man wearing a nylon-type item on his head. Panty hose were found at the scene and submitted to the state police crime lab in Greensburg for testing. Almost $2,000 was stolen.

The DNA found on the hose matched that of Lomax, a convicted felon with a lengthy record in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. Lomax was located in Westmoreland County Jail on unrelated charges.

Assistant District Attorney Josh Carroll asked Emery to impose a harsher sentence because of the seriousness of the crime, because a gun was used and because of Lomax's prior record.

He also said Rostcheck did not wish to address the court but was still sufffering some effects of the crime.