A 50-year-old Westminster man was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison for robbing 13 stores with a fake gun.

John Allen Wagner accepted a plea deal from an Orange County Superior Court judge in August. He admitted 13 felony counts of second-degree robbery and acknowledged sentencing enhancement allegations for prior convictions for burglary in 1987 and bank robbery in 1991, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Wagner’s robbery spree began Jan. 21, 2015, at a Rite Aid store in Garden Grove and ended with a robbery of a Vons store in Huntington Beach in July 2016, prosecutors said.

A customer in a Ralph’s grocery store in Fountain Valley recognized him later that month, leading to his arrest.

–City News Service

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