Ex-con accused of shooting officer in Fort Mill gets 9 years for robbery

An ex-con charged in connection with the ambush shooting of a Charlotte police officer trying to arrest him in Fort Mill last year has been sentenced to nine years in prison for robbery.

James William Lewis, 32, pleaded guilty in May 2014 to robbing a Pineville, N.C., Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant. U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn Jr. on Tuesday also sentenced Lewis to five years of supervised release — the federal equivalent of probation — and ordered him to pay $841 in restitution. All federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.

Lewis, of Kings Mountain, N.C., also faces federal charges in South Carolina in connection with the shooting of Shane Page, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer who was part of an apprehension team that tried to arrest Lewis on a warrant for the Pineville robbery in January 2014. That case had been put on hold until Lewis was sentenced in North Carolina.

Lewis’ girlfriend, Kirstie Barratt, lied to Page and other officers about his being in her parents’ house in Fort Mill, and police say Lewis shot Page as the officer searched the upper floor of the house.

Barratt was sentenced to two years in prison for lying to police and leading officers into what federal prosecutors and a federal judge have called “an ambush.”

Page, who was shot in the pelvis, abdomen and shoulder, has since retired from the police department.

Jill Westmoreland Rose, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said in a press release that Lewis was a former employee of the Jack in the Box. She said he ordered the manager at gunpoint to open the restaurant’s safe before taking the cash and fleeing.

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 6:12 PM with the headline "Ex-con accused of shooting officer in Fort Mill gets 9 years for robbery."