DRAPER -- A 48-year-old man convicted 14 years ago of using a gun to rob a Layton movie theater says he did it to get money to pay restitution for a 1988 robbery conviction.
"I know it sounds like an excuse, but (the parole) agent made me mad saying he wanted me to pay more, so I thought, 'You want your restitution money, I'll get it for you,' " said Phillip Hollen, who is serving six sentences of five years to life in Utah State Prison.
Hollen was convicted in 1988 in 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City of first-degree felony aggravated robbery. He was released from prison in May 1994 and placed on parole. He was ordered to pay $75 a month for restitution in connection with the 1988 conviction.
But, in 1995, he and Jeffery D. Mecham went on a crime spree.
Two of the convictions stemming from the 1995 crime spree -- first-degree felony aggravated robbery and first-degree felony aggravated kidnapping -- came out of 2nd District Court in Farmington on July 17, 1996, in connection with an armed robbery at the Movies 10 theater in Layton on June 25, 1995.
Hollen was arrested with Mecham after a police shootout Sept. 24, 1995, when the two entered the Million Dollar Saloon in South Salt Lake.
Hollen appeared for a parole hearing Tuesday. The hearing was originally scheduled for 2015, but prison officials asked the parole board to set up an early one because Hollen has been doing well in prison, said hearing officer Angela Mickols.
Hollen said he and Mecham had gone to the Layton theater several times before they robbed it to "see how it was set up."
The night of the robbery, he said, they got there near the end of the last show. After the lobby was clear, they rounded up the employees and had them go upstairs to the manager's office, where they emptied the safe, he said.
When asked why he decided to shoot it out with police in South Salt Lake, Hollen said, "It was fear. We didn't want to go back to prison."
Mickols said after reading the report of the shooting, she was surprised no one was killed.
One officer and a patron of the saloon were injured.
"So tell me how you are going to make sure this does not happen again," Mickols said.
"How can I assure you?" Hollen said. "I'm just not going to do (crime) again."
Hollen said he has no expectations about what the board will do. If the board does not grant Hollen a parole, his next hearing will be in 2015.
"What I want and what I need are two different things," he said.
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