Man pleads guilty in Scotty McCreery home invasion case

A man accused of robbing singer Scotty McCreery and his roommates at gunpoint in 2014 pleaded guilty on Monday to the charges, but refused to give information about his co-conspirators.

Mikkail Jamal Shaw, 21, is to be sentenced Tuesday for several counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon and second-degree kidnapping in a case chronicled by celebrity news sites.

In McCreery’s recently released book “Go Big or Go Home” and in 2014 TV interviews, the “American Idol” winner elaborated on the incident. Several men with guns barged into a Raleigh apartment about 2 a.m. on May 5, 2014, where the country music star and friends were watching “Gladiator.” McCreery and his friends had brought home food from a local burger joint when they heard a knock at the door.

One of the men who lived in the apartment thought it was a neighbor and opened the door after seeing nothing alarming through the peephole. Several men barged in, according to a search warrant related to the case, and left with wallets, cellphones, money and a laptop from the singer and his friends.

The first man had an assault rifle, according to one of McCreery’s interviews, and held it against the sternum of the man who opened the door.

One of the robbers paced the floor. He held a pistol to McCreery’s head and against the head of another man in the apartment.

“Get down! Get on the floor and give us everything you got,” the intruders shouted, according to McCreery’s memoir. “There are shouts, screams, and curses. My friends are saying, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’”

McCreery, who won Season 10 of the FOX reality show in 2011, has talked about how “staring down the barrel of a pistol” helped put his life in perspective.

“This is real and raw, and I’m thinking I’m going to die any second,” McCreery recalled in his book.

McCreery was on the list of possible witnesses that prosecutors had planned to call if the case went to trial.

His mother, Judy McCreery, was at the plea hearing on Monday, but the country music star was not.

Prosecutors did not know whether he would be at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.

This story was originally published June 27, 2016 at 3:43 PM with the headline "Man pleads guilty in Scotty McCreery home invasion case."