Lee’s Travel Center robbed, two arrested

February 13, 2019 by Crystal Huskey

On Feb. 5, 2019 Clinton Police Officers responded to Lee’s Travel Center, located at 2233 N. Charles G. Seivers Blvd. in Clinton, for an aggravated robbery.

But things weren’t quite what they seemed.

The store clerk on duty, Justin Pennington, told police that a man wearing all black, with two bandanas covering his face, attempted to come into the store.

According to Pennington, he wasn’t able to get in because Pennington had gone out to use the restroom and locked the entrance.

Then Pennington let him in.

Pennington said that the masked man then pulled out a knife and told him to open the cash register or he would stab him, according to the police report.

That’s not what happened.

When Clinton Police Investigator Sgt. Scott Gregory reviewed surveillance footage and gathered additional information, he learned that the masked man, unmasked as Jacob T. Maiden, took money from the cash register and placed two bags of suspected narcotics (meth) on the counter and left the scene.

Pennington is seen placing the suspected narcotics into his pocket after Maiden leaves.

Maiden was arrested on Feb. 6 and charged with criminal conspiracy, theft of property and manufacture/delivery/sale/possession of methamphetamine.

Pennington was also arrested on Feb. 6 and charged with criminal conspiracy, theft of property and possession of schedule II.

Both are being held at the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department.