Trio get prison for Pittsburgh-area restaurant heists

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Three young men will be spending decades in prison for a series of heists -- some of them violent -- at Pittsburgh-area restaurants.

Twenty-four-year-old Louis Rice and 23-year-old Keith Fields, both of Pittsburgh, have been sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison, while 23-year-old Gerald Davis Jr., of Monroeville, will spend 22 to 44 years behind bars.

The men were sentenced Friday by an Allegheny County judge for nine of the 12 heists which occurred in the county.

The robbers targeted high-traffic restaurants including a McDonald's in Shaler Township, and the Primanti Brothers and Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants in North Versailles.

During the March 2012 McDonald's robbery, for example, the men held a knife to a worker's throat and fired a gun into the ceiling before making off with more than $2,300.

WPXI