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During a Friday hearing, Union County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Kirsch ruled that Plainfield's Thomas H. Outland must serve a minimum of 85% of the sentence before the possibility of parole, under the provisions of New Jersey’s No Early Release Act.
Outland and an unidentified co-conspirator both wearing ski masks and holding guns entered the Route 22 Scotch Plains McDonald's through an unlocked door around 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 4, 2015, Union County Assistant Prosecutors Aran McNerney and Marilyn Muller said.
The unidentified suspect then began demanding the cell phones of some of the employees who were cleaning the restaurant at the end of their shift while Outland began walking towards the manager’s office, where the safe was located, the prosecutors said.
Outland was intercepted by one of the store employees, who loudly asserted that Outland’s weapon was fake and suggested Outland could get killed. That's when Outland removed his mask, lowered his imitation firearm, and announced to the restaurant employees that his actions "constituted a practical joke," authorities said.
He and the second suspect, who never removed his mask, then returned the employees’ cell phones and immediately left the area.
Following an investigation by the Scotch Plains Police Department, Outland was arrested in January 2016 and indicted a month later. The incident occurred while Outland was free on bail in connection with an unrelated robbery that took place in April 2014.
A jury convicted Outland on multiple charges associated with that crime in May 2016 and he was sentenced to an extended term of 16 years in state prison for the robbery charges, Union County Prosecutor William A. Daniel said.
Outland's sentence is to run consecutively to the previously imposed sentence of 16 years of the 2014 robbery.
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