Victim of 2011 mob attack charged in Rock Hill armed robbery, bomb threat

The victim of a 2011 mob attack in York County is in jail after he was accused of robbing a store Monday, while holding a knife and threatening he had a bomb, according to a Rock Hill Police Department report.

Police responded to a report of an armed robbery at the Kangaroo Express on Celanese Road at about 2:49 p.m. Monday, the report says.

Witnesses told police a man wearing all black said he had a bomb, took out a knife and walked behind the counter. The report says the man, later identified as Joshua Esskew, 26, stole an undisclosed amount of cash and fled in a silver Ford F-150 truck.

Officers found the truck on Riverview Road, and towed it, the report says. Esskew showed up to the scene of the parked truck “heavily intoxicated,” and was arrested and charged with armed robbery, the report says.

Esskew told police in April 2011 that the mob who attacked him went after him because he’s gay. The attack prompted an FBI investigation into whether the attack was a hate crime, but no charges were filed.

Local prosecutors never could prove that Esskew was attacked because he was gay, the 16th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said in 2012.

Esskew is once more in jail. In 2011, Esskew pleaded guilty to obtaining prescription drugs by fraud, weeks after pleading guilty to stealing a credit card from a worker at a Rock Hill church.

In the Monday incident, Esskew is charged with armed robbery and possession of a deadly weapon during a violent crime, the report says.

Capt. Mark Bollinger, spokesman for Rock Hill police, said Esskew also faces fraud charges in a July 24 credit card investigation.

This story was originally published August 22, 2017 at 9:45 AM with the headline "Victim of 2011 mob attack charged in Rock Hill armed robbery, bomb threat."