A 62-year-old man who was identified by his prosthetic leg for a carjacking with an Airsoft gun at a Marion County gas station on St. Patrick’s Day in 2019 has been sentenced to life in prison for the crime.
Ronny Scott Cooper was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, December 19, by Judge Peter Matthew Brigham in the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court of Marion County.
The sentence comes just a few months shy of six years since Cooper committed the carjacking.
According to an arrest report, on St. Patrick’s Day in 2019, Cooper was asking customers at the Petro truck stop located at 7401 W Highway 318 in Reddick for rides to Lake City.
After no one answered Cooper’s request, he approached a woman who was pumping gas into her GMC pickup truck. Cooper asked the woman where she was going, and she told him she was not going in that direction.
In response, Cooper pulled a black Airsoft gun from his waistband, waved it around, and told the woman that he wanted her truck and money. When the woman told him he had used her money for gas, Cooper directed her to continue to pump gas before he placed his guitar in the vehicle.
Once she filled the car with gas, Cooper directed her to remain at the gas pump and then he drove away, heading north on I-75.
Two days later, an East Baton Rouge Louisiana Sheriff’s Office deputy spotted Cooper sitting near the victim’s vehicle, which was “wrecked and immobilized” on a golf course. Cooper told the deputy that he was a “singer traveling from Las Vegas to Jacksonville,” and he further claimed that the vehicle “belonged to his girlfriend.”
The deputy conducted a computer search of the vehicle’s tag number, which revealed that it had been reported stolen out of Marion County. Cooper was detained in handcuffs shortly thereafter.
Cooper was eventually booked into Marion County Jail on May 1, 2019. According to court records, Cooper, who is from Citra, has been incarcerated since then.
This past May, Cooper was found guilty by a jury.
Cooper has a prior criminal history that includes convictions for grand theft of a motor vehicle and robbery with a gun or deadly weapon.
As part of the sentencing, court records show that a public defender will be appointed in the case to handle an appeal on Cooper’s behalf.