Trio plead innocent in Lynn armed robbery

SALEM – Three people accused of robbing and beating a Lynn teen on Essex Street with a hammer for $200 in November say they committed no crime.Philip Andrew LeBlanc, 30, and Shawn Bottiglio, 27, both of Essex Place, Lynn, and Ryan Lawrence Applegate, 28, of 2 Hillside Terrace, Saugus, pleaded innocent at their arraignment Friday morning in Salem Superior Court to charges of armed robbery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a hammer, before Judge John T. Lu.LeBlanc, who remains held at the Middleton Jail on $10,000 cash bail, also entered an innocent plea to a third charge of possession of Clonazepam in connection with the case.Applegate and Bottiglio, whose bail had been reduced earlier at a bail hearing in Superior Court, were allowed to remain free each on $1,000 cash bail.Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Kirshenbaum said the charges against the trio arise out of an incident in Lynn on Nov. 3.According to reports, the victim, then 19, told authorities he went into the 7-Eleven convenience store at the corner of Fayette and Essex streets and when he came out he was approached by the suspects, who placed a blunt object against his back and herded him into a basement apartment at 4 Essex Place where he was struck over the head with a hammer and $200 was taken from his person.A friend of the victim saw the robbers take the victim and followed the group in his car. After a few minutes he got out and went to the basement, where he found the victim standing in the doorway bleeding from a wound to his head.Police arrested the suspects following an investigation.They each face a potential life sentence in state prison if convicted on the armed robbery charge and up to 10 years in state prison on the assault and battery with a dangerous weapon charge.Their next scheduled court date is Feb. 9 for a pretrial conference.