GREENEVILLE-A Jefferson City man was sentenced in U.S. District Court on Monday to 19.5 years (235 months) in federal prison for robbing pharmacies in Bulls Gap, Newport and White Pine last year.

Nicholas Leonard Lukens, 29, of Bartlett Drive, Jefferson City, had entered guilty pleas last January to three counts of robbery of controlled substances from U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency-registered pharmacies.

U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer, who imposed sentence on Lukens on Monday, also ordered that he make restitution totaling $14,411 to the robbery victims at a rate of 10 percent per month, according to court records.

The judge also agreed to recommend that Lukens be allowed to serve his sentence at the federal prison in Lexington, Ky., and that he be allowed to participate in the Bureau of Prisons 500-hour residential intensive drug abuse treatment program.

Case's Background

A plea agreement that Lukens signed shows he admitted to three robberies, including the June 3, 2008, robbery of Cunningham Drugs in Bulls Gap, in which drugs valued at $3,000 were stolen.

The plea agreement said that, according to pharmacy employees, a man later identified as Lukens entered the business while using a cell phone.

After turning off the cell phone near the pharmacy counter, according to the plea agreement, Lukens crossed the counter and waved what appeared to employees to be a black pistol.

After gathering employees together, according to the plea agreement, Lukens said, "I don't normally do stuff like this, but I'm on drugs," then told the pharmacist that he wanted the legally-controlled painkilling drug OxyContin.

After Lukens put 485 OxyContin pills in his pocket, he demanded cash from the store's cash register, according to the plea agreement. He then took $190 from the register.

On June 21, Lukens also robbed the Town and Country Drug Store on the Cosby Highway in Newport, according to the plea agreement.

In that robbery a man armed with a "black pistol" demanded OxyContin and left with 12 bottles of Oxycodone.

On June 30, 2008, Lukens also robbed the Sanitary Drug Store on Main Street in White Pine.

During that robbery, according to the plea agreement, a man armed with a black pistol took 12 bottles of OxyContin and put them in a plastic grocery bag.

Employees, who had been ordered to go to the back of the store, saw him leave in a Nissan pickup truck.

The plea agreement said Lukens later was arrested and confessed to all three robberies.

At the time of his arrest, according to the plea agreement, Lukens told officers the gun used in the robberies was not real. The plea agreement said the firearm was not recovered.