It could have been something out of an early Lost flashback. Almost three years ago a desperate young man broke into the Hawaii home of one of TV's biggest stars and robbed him at gunpoint before stealing his Mercedes and driving off into the night. Only in the real world, Lost's con man Sawyer (Josh Holloway) was the victim and not the devious swindler.

What makes for thrilling drama on television isn't quite so exciting in real life, so it must have been with relief that Josh Holloway and his wife Yessica learned of the thief's sentencing this past Tuesday.

Ruben Royce, who was 20 at the time of the robbery and his arrest in October 2005, was apprehended by police not even a week after his daring and frightening break in at the Holloways' home. It was a fittingly dramatic capture made after a night of Royce abusing his girlfriend and committing even more robbery, ending with a hail of rubber bullets pounding the suspect's car as it drove near an elementary school.

In February of this year, Royce pleaded guilty to 34 related counts as part of a plea deal, among them kidnapping, first-degree robbery and car theft. When the hammer finally came down on Tuesday, he was officially sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.

Like any of the heroic felons peppering the cast of Lost, Royce claims to be repentant and wants to turn his life around. Whether Ruben Royce will end up a free man like Kate or kept indefinitely imprisoned on an island like Sawyer, only time will tell.


- , BuddyTV Staff Writer
Source: E! Online, Zap2It
(Photo courtesy of ABC)