Felon Gets Prison For ACME Robbery, Guns, Drug Sales

BRISTOL TOWNSHIP, PA — A convicted felon from Bristol who was found guilty of a $42,000 supermarket robbery, illegally owning guns and selling opioid pills is on his way to prison.

Jared Robert Aichele, 36, pleaded guilty this week to two counts of firearms possession by a prohibited person, theft by unlawful taking, conspiracy to commit theft by deception and delivery of a controlled substance. He was senteced in Bucks County Common Please Court to eight to 20 years in state prison.

Aichele had been prohibited from owning firearms after a 2000 robbery conviction and a 2008 burglary conviction.

On May 5, 2016, he and an employee of the ACME store at 6800 New Falls Road in Bristol staged an early-morning robbery. The employee, Danielle Drum, told officers that a suspect in a motorcycle helmet pulled a gun on her, forced her into the store's cash room, took money and zip-tied her hands behind her back before running away.

But store surveillance video showed that Drum had unlocked the cash room and two safe doors after she arrived for work, leaving them all open, then texted someone on her phone before Aichele arrived. The two then faked the robbery, with video capturing Drum putting $43,207 in Aichele's backpack before he tired her hands and left.

She would later tell police she helped Aichele plan and stage the heist, receiving $7,000 and 35 Percocet pills for her role in the crime.

Drum, 35, of Levittown, has pleaded guilty to theft-related felonies and is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 10.

In addition to robbing the ACME, Aichele was charged with selling Percocet/Oxycodone pills in Bristol to a cooperating witness while police watched. While he was free on bail awaiting trial, he was stopped by Bristol police, who found a loaded, semiautomatic handgun on him and a second handgun with a destroyed serial number under the driver's seat.

The cases were investigated by the Bristol Township Police Department, the Bristol Borough Police Department, and Bucks County detectives.

Photo courtesy Bucks County District Attorney's office