Lawrence Robert Lawton (born October 3, 1961) is an American ex-convict, author, paralegal, motivational speaker, and YouTuber.

Lawton gained notoriety for committing a string of jewelry store robberies along the Atlantic Seaboard prior to his arrest in 1996.

He spent 12 years in prison, and once released, began a career as a motivational speaker, life coach, and author.

[9] In grades one through six, Lawton served as an altar boy at St. Francis de Chantal in The Bronx,[10] where he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest.

[10] In 1983, having earned his GED, he left the Coast Guard and began engaging in criminal activity, mostly loan sharking and bookmaking.

[13] He then began robbing jewelry stores along the Atlantic Coast,[5] using his contacts within the Gambino crime family to fence the stolen merchandise.

[10][14] At one point, he purchased an Italian pizza restaurant in North Lauderdale, Florida, which he later burned down as part of an insurance fraud.

[9] In May 1994, three males robbed a jewelry store in Daytona Beach, Florida, netting $500,000 (over $1,000,000 in 2024)[15] worth of gold and diamonds.

The store owner managed to break free and grabbed a .38 caliber pistol and fired five shots at the robbers as they fled.

[12] Afterwards, another jewelry store in Lower Bucks County became suspicious of a person they believed was casing the place for a future robbery.

[19] Lawton is believed to have hit around 20 to 25 jewelry stores,[13] stealing a self-estimated total of around $15–18 million worth of high-value items, including watches, diamonds, and other gems.

[27] He was incarcerated in many prisons during his sentence, which included Jesup in Georgia, Riker's Island in New York, Edgefield in South Carolina, and Yazoo City in Mississippi.

[28] Lawton says he regrets his time spent in prison, because he missed out on seeing his children grow up; his grandmother died, and his father became afflicted with Alzheimer's disease while he was inside.

[32] The Lake St. Louis police chief praised Larry's message about the consequences of going to prison and said it is not a scared straight program, noting that Lawton said "fear doesn't have a lasting impact.

[12] Lawton also founded the Reality Check Foundation, which is a 501(C)(3) charity that includes a mentoring program, and an annual golf outing.

[10] In 2019, he made a video with Vanity Fair where he analyzed fictional robberies from films such as The Italian Job and Heat.