What Happened
A violent repeat offender from Ridge has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after robbing a Yaphank Shell gas station at gunpoint and triggering a dangerous high-speed police pursuit through Suffolk County, according to News 12 Long Island, which first reported the sentencing on July 16, 2026.
Marion Maupin, 28, of Ridge, entered the Shell gas station in Yaphank on January 24, 2025, alongside an accomplice, prosecutors say. The accomplice took up position near the door as a lookout while Maupin pressed a loaded handgun against the head of the store clerk and stole cash directly from the register. Both men then fled the scene together in a white Cadillac.
Suffolk County police officers later spotted the white Cadillac in Bellport and attempted to conduct a traffic stop. The vehicle immediately sped away, initiating a pursuit that News 12 Long Island reports lasted approximately 15 minutes and reached speeds in excess of 100 mph at points. The chase came to a violent and chaotic end when Maupin and his accomplice leaped from the still-moving Cadillac. As they bailed out, they hurled a firearm into a nearby yard. The driverless car then crashed into a telephone pole directly in front of a home daycare facility. Officers recovered the discarded gun and arrested both suspects in the rear yard of the daycare.
Maupin’s January 2025 crime was far from his first involvement with the criminal justice system. In 2013, he was sentenced to three years in prison for attempted criminal possession of a weapon. He was convicted of that same offense a second time in 2019 and received a five-year prison sentence. Prosecutors note that Maupin was on active parole at the time he walked into the Yaphank Shell station with a loaded gun — meaning he had not yet completed his prior sentence before reoffending. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office has since designated him a “persistent violent felony offender.”
“This defendant, with two prior weapons convictions, was not deterred by parole from arming himself and robbing a gas station at gunpoint,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, as reported by News 12 Long Island. “The people of Suffolk County deserve to be protected from repeat violent offenders such as this defendant, who was unfortunately on parole at the time of this crime instead of remaining in prison to complete his sentence.”
Location & Road Context
The robbery took place at a Shell gas station in Yaphank, a hamlet in central Suffolk County. The high-speed pursuit moved into Bellport, a nearby South Shore community, before Maupin and his accomplice abandoned the vehicle near a home daycare — putting both the officers in pursuit and neighborhood residents, including children, in danger. The crash into a telephone pole outside an active childcare facility underscores the residential stakes of high-speed pursuits in densely populated suburban Suffolk communities.
Investigation & Legal Proceedings
Maupin was convicted by a jury on charges of robbery, criminal possession of a weapon, and unlawful fleeing of a police officer in April 2026, following the January 2025 incident. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office secured the conviction and subsequently pushed for an enhanced sentence based on Maupin’s designation as a persistent violent felony offender — a classification triggered by his two prior weapons convictions in 2013 and 2019. On July 16, 2026, a judge sentenced Maupin to 20 years to life in prison. The case was prosecuted under DA Ray Tierney, who emphasized that Maupin’s parole status at the time of the crime made the outcome all the more troubling.
Broader Impact
New York State’s persistent violent felony offender statutes mandate enhanced minimum sentences for defendants with multiple prior qualifying convictions — a framework directly applied in Maupin’s case. DA Tierney’s remarks pointedly flagged the failure of parole supervision to prevent a third weapons-related felony, a tension that frequently surfaces in Suffolk County criminal proceedings involving repeat offenders and is likely to draw further scrutiny as this sentencing receives public attention.