ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Two hundred fifty-seven dollars in cash and several cartons of cigarettes; that paltry sum from a 2024 armed robbery landed a Maryland Heights, Missouri, man decades in state prison.
Brandon L. Knobel, 23, was convicted last week after a three-day trial. Jurors found Knobel guilty of first-degree robbery and armed criminal action but acquitted him on a charge of resisting arrest. He appeared in St. Louis County Circuit Court on Monday to learn his fate.
The robbery took place June 19, 2024, at the 7-Eleven near the intersection of Olive Boulevard and North Woods Mill Road in Chesterfield.
Prosecutors said Knobel entered the store with a gun, walked behind the counter, and confronted a clerk working the overnight shift. Knobel demanded money and cartons of Newport cigarettes. Knobel left and the clerk was unharmed.
Chesterfield police found Knobel a short time later within a quarter mile of the 7-Eleven. They found the gun and recovered most of the items stolen in the robbery.
At the time of his arrest, Knobel was on parole for a 2019 car theft in Jefferson County.
The county circuit court judge overseeing the case sentenced Knobel to 25 years in state prison for the robbery and five years for armed criminal action. Those sentences will be served consecutively.
Knobel is also facing a charge of third-degree assault for allegedly attacking a corrections officer while in custody,
