Teen charged with attempting to rob motorist near store

Woman told suspect that seat belt held her in car

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

A court commissioner ordered early Tuesday morning that 18-year-old Steven Wendell Mason be held in lieu of $25,000 bond on charges including attempted robbery and a second-degree assault on Sheilla Cagle Corrigan. The commissioner found no probable cause to detain Mason on charges of carjacking and motor-vehicle theft from Monday’s 10:20 p.m. incident in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

The woman left the store and got into the 1999 Lincoln Town Car before a man opened the driver’s side door and yelled for her to get out of the vehicle, sheriff’s deputy Cindy Allen said Tuesday at the sheriff’s office.

‘‘The victim was unable to get out of her vehicle because of her seat belt,” Allen said. ‘‘The [assailant] attempted to pull the victim from her vehicle. The victim began screaming.”

Other people in the parking lot took notice of the incident, the deputy said, and court papers state Corrigan pushed her assailant away from her before he ran toward nearby woods, pursued by two witnesses.

Sheriff’s deputy Keith Moritz arrived at the store and radioed other law officers to help set up a perimeter around the scene, court papers state. Sheriff’s deputy James Molitor spotted and detained Mason near the intersection of Chancellor’s Run Road and Amber Drive.

Law officers took the woman and another witness to that location to see the detained man.

Mason told police that he had been playing basketball with a cousin and was going to his godfather’s home in Lexington Park, according to court records.