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Man gets prison for aiding in Mercedes robbery Steven Marcus King Friday Dec 2, 2016 at 4:19 PM Nick Morgan Mail Tribune @mtcrimebeat A former Jackson County Drug Court participant was sentenced to more than six years in prison today after admitting he helped create a distraction with one co-conspirator while a third man stole a Mercedes-Benz sedan at gunpoint. Steven Marcus King, 27, pleaded guilty to a felony robbery charge for causing a diversion in an elaborate three-person heist of the luxury car advertised on Craigslist just over a month ago. King said that on the evening of Oct. 28, he and James Robert Taylor helped Jorge Marco Antonio Serna take the 2006 Mercedes at gunpoint in the area of Edgewater and Golf View drives by distracting the owner of the Mercedes, who was riding behind in a separate vehicle. Serna, who was supposedly test-driving the Mercedes with the owner's father, pulled a gun on the father after Taylor and King allegedly knocked on the owner's car window and asked for a jump start to a gold Saturn. Deputy District Attorney Virginia Greer said King, Taylor and Serna had looked together on Craigslist, seeking out potential victims. After his capture Nov. 2, in which he was pulled over in the Saturn believed to have been involved, King cooperated in the investigation, Greer said. King helped police find a bullet casing ejected while test-firing the handgun Serna allegedly used in the robbery. Serna and Taylor are both awaiting trial in the case. Circuit Court Judge Patricia Crain sentenced King to 70 months in prison. He also received three years of post-prison supervision. Under Measure 11 guidelines, King will serve the full sentence. Court records show that between February 2015 and June 2016, King had been in the county's drug court program seeking sentence reductions for 2014 identity theft and meth-possession charges. A longtime drug court judge, Crain called the outcome "too bad." "You had a chance to do things well and you didn't," Crain said. — Reach reporter Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MTCrimeBeat.