The owner of Nick’s Party Stop on Cass Avenue in Clinton Township [Oakland, California] and several people connected to his store are being sued by a man who was shot while robbing the store.The lawsuit, filed by Scott Thomas Zielinski from his cell in a Michigan prison, was assigned to Macomb County Circuit Judge David Viviano.
John Acho, owner of the store and one of the people sued, said his customers are mad that an armed robber is allowed to file a lawsuit after he threatened the store’s employees with a knife.
Zielinski is seeking in excess of $125,000 for injuries sustained when he was shot escaping from the owners of the store. They went after him because he held two of the employees at knifepoint and threatened to kill them, police said.
“He comes into my store wearing a mask and armed with a knife, threatens to kill my employees and steals cigarettes and $793 in cash,” said Acho. “And he is suing us because we ruined his life and he is going through pain and suffering.”
Zielinski, 22, was convicted of the November 2007 robbery. In a plea bargain, he was sentenced May 20, 2008, to eight to 22 years in prison for unarmed, instead of armed, robbery.
A year earlier, he was sentenced to one year, seven months in prison for the robbery of Charter One Bank in Warren on Feb. 17, 2006...
