Two men convicted of robbing and shooting a postal truck driver were sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.
Kendrick Watkins, 40, of Rex, was sentenced to 18 years plus four months, and Charles Jackson, 56, of Griffin, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for the December 2013 assault, U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said.
“These defendants shot the victim, tied up his legs and threw away his cell phone so that he could not run or call for help,” Yates said in an emailed statement. “Watkins and Jackson’s callous disregard for human life nearly cost the victim his for simply doing his job. The lengthy sentences imposed are an appropriate response for this heinous crime.”
Watkins and Jackson worked together with co-defendant Latonya Evans, a former postal employee in Jackson, Ga., to develop a scheme to rob a postal truck just before Christmas in 2013, when postal volume was at its highest, according to prosecutors.
On Dec. 20, 2013, Watkins and Jackson approached a postal driver conducting a routine mail pick-up in DeKalb County and demanded his keys before shooting the victim in the torso, leaving him critically injured.
After shooting the driver, Jackson and Watkins bound the man’s feet and took his phone before driving away in the postal truck, investigators said. The victim crawled several hundred feet to the nearest road, where he flagged down a passerby for help.
Later that evening, Watkins met with Evans to discuss splitting up the stolen items. In November, Evans was sentenced to 15 years, eight months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. She also was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $14,888.
Both Jackson and Watkins also were each ordered to pay $14,888 in restitution and will spend five years on supervised released following their prison time, Yates said.
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