More Top Picks Dive Mask
player ready...Ronald Medlin, the St. Charles Township man accused of using a knife to commit robberies in St. Charles, Elgin and South Elgin earlier this year, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday.
Medlin, 46, denied the eight-count indictment, which includes armed robbery and aggravated robbery, during a court appearance before Judge David Kliment. Medlin is being held in Kane County Jail on $1.1 million bail with a July 13 hearing scheduled.
Prosecutors allege Medlin used a knife to take money and cigarettes during the robberies which occurred between Feb. 6 and Feb. 14. Investigators zeroed in on Medlin after St. Charles police responded to a pair of incidents on Feb. 13 in which a man — later determined by authorities to be Medlin — used a knife to take $381 from the 7-Eleven store on East Main Street and, several hours later, the Clark Gas Station on West Main Street.
Around 3 a.m. on Feb. 14, Medlin had a knife when he took $400 from the register at the Shell Station on South State Street in Elgin, authorities said. Based on suspect information gathered in the St. Charles cases, Elgin police were able to identify Medlin on surveillance footage of the robbery and track him to a South Elgin home where he was arrested.
The investigation also turned up enough information to eventually identify Medlin as the suspect in a Feb. 6 knife-point robbery of a woman in South Elgin, court documents show.
Two months before the robbery spree, Medlin was paroled by the Illinois Department of Corrections where he served prison time for various convictions. He previously was imprisoned on drug charges and once received an eight-year sentence for an aggravated robbery conviction for stealing money and cigarettes from a St. Charles convenience store, records show.
Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.