Man Sentenced After Dousing Store Clerks With Pepper Spray, Stealing Money From Register

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — A 45-year-old man has pleaded guilty for his role in two armed robberies that happened in Howard County in the fall of 2024.

On Sept. 19, 2024, around 12:30 p.m., Sean Robert Shorb, Sr., went into a gas station located in the 15000 block of Frederick Road in Woodbine and walked up to the counter. As the clerk approached the counter to help him, Shorb sprayed the clerk in the face with pepper spray, causing the clerk to temporarily lose his vision, Howard County Police reported. The employee ran to the bathroom to splash his eyes with water and while in there, Shorb stole almost $1,000 in cash from the register and took off.

Then on Sept. 28, 2024, at the same gas station, Shorb again walked up to the counter and sprayed the clerk in the face with pepper spray. When Shorb went behind the counter, the clerk tried to hit him with a shovel. Shorb then sprayed the clerk a second time with pepper spray and stole $675 from the register, according to Howard County Police.

On Oct. 8, 2024, Shorb used pepper spray on a store clerk at a convenience store in Baltimore County, police reported. When he was arrested Oct. 9, 2024, by Baltimore County Police, he confessed to the previous three robberies in Howard County, prosecutors said.

Shorb has pleaded guilty to armed robbery and was sentenced to 25 years without the possibility of parole.