The CVS Pharmacy in Sanatoga

SANATOGA PA – A Pottstown area man who police arrested Friday (Jan. 13, 2012) in connection with an attempted robbery of drugs last week from a Rite-Aid pharmacy in Wyomissing, outside Reading PA, also may be responsible for a similar Jan. 3 robbery conducted at the CVS Pharmacy on East High Street in Sanatoga, they speculate.

Arrested by the Wyomissing Police Department was Shivi Brian Neil, a 21-year-old resident of nearby East Coventry Township in Chester County, according to a report from WFMZ-TV News. Neil, a sophomore at the Berks County campus of Penn State University, was taken into custody at the school shortly after noon. He faces numerous charges, including robbery and receiving stolen property.

In the Wyomissing incident and others, “the bandit told employees he had a needle infected with the HIV virus,” WFMZ reported. He didn’t get what he wanted then; store employees called 9-1-1, and he ran out empty-handed. Apparently he left a fingerprint, though, and that’s what led police to Neil, the television story added.

Lower Pottsgrove Township police have indicated Neil could be the same man who conducted the similar East High Street CVS robbery in a daylight incident, using a demand note and what witnesses said seemed to be a weapon hidden in his pocket. A quantity of drugs, the make and volume of which was not released by police, was taken in that incident, according to township officers.

• Read a story titled “Police investigate third pharmacy robbery in a week” ad published Friday by WFMZ, here.