By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A 25-year-old Helena man will spend the next two decades in prison and must register as a sex offender after he pleaded guilty to robbing an Alabaster convenience store in 2012 and exposing himself to a Shelby County Jail corrections officer in July of this year.

Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Dan Reeves sentenced Timothy Tabb Bivins to 20 years in prison on Sept. 10 after Bivins pleaded guilty to felony charges of first-degree robbery and third-degree burglary and a misdemeanor count of indecent exposure. He received 830 days of jail credit for time already served in the Shelby County Jail.

As a result of his guilty pleas, Bivins, who lists an address on Cunningham Drive in Helena, also must complete a substance abuse treatment program and an anger management program while incarcerated in the Alabama Department of Corrections.

The Alabaster Police Department arrested Bivins on Jan. 28, 2013, and charged him with using a gun to rob the Cannon Kwik Stop on U.S. 31 in Alabaster in August 2012.

While out on bond on the robbery charge, Bivins was again arrested by the Alabaster Police Department and charged with burglarizing a woman’s home and stealing U.S. currency during a May 2013 incident.

A few months before he pleaded guilty, Bivins was charged with indecent exposure after he exposed his genitals to a Shelby County Jail corrections officer at the jail on July 1. As a result of pleading guilty to the indecent exposure charge, Bivins must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life after he is released from prison.