Washington man sentenced to 20 years in prison for armed robbery of cell phone stores, 76 devices stolen

WASHINGTON (7News) — A Washington, D.C. man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for armed robberies of two phone stores in December 2020, announced Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, and Special Agent in Charge William J. DelBagno of the FBI and other officials.

According to evidence from the trial, Donte Antwaun Herring and his accomplices stole 76 Apple and Samsung devices, the contents of two safes and cash from a store’s cash register.

Prosecutors allege that shortly after 7:15 p.m. on December 17, 2020, Herring and his accomplices entered a telephone store in the 3900 block of Washington Boulevard in Halethorpe, Maryland, and pretended to purchase phones.

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Herring then pulled out a ghost gun and aimed it at the store clerk. Herring then ordered the victim to go to the store’s safe. Herring and the co-conspirator stole several boxes containing Apple cell phones, watches, iPads, and cash from the store’s cash register before fleeing the store.

Witnesses testified that the second robbery began on December 23, 2020, when co-defendant Rico Dashiell entered a phone store in the 10,000 block of Reisterstown Road in Owings Mills, Maryland, posing as a customer. Then Herring and another co-conspirator entered the store with guns in hand.

A customer was also asked to empty his pockets, after which the robbers took the victim’s wallet, which contained his driver’s license and credit cards, as well as his car keys and an Apple iPhone 8S plus valued at $350.

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The group again demanded to be taken to the store’s safe, where they stole all of the electronic devices from the safe – including 76 Apple and Samsung Galaxy devices. When Herring and the co-conspirator finished emptying the safe, they ordered the three victims to leave the store’s ground floor and go to the room in the back of the store where the safe was kept.

According to testimony at the trial, the group also sprayed the victims’ faces with pepper spray and stole $322 from the store’s cash register.

Herring and his co-conspirators then fled in a car that had been stolen earlier in the day and in which the license plates of another vehicle had been stolen.

Police officers tracked the car to a home in Catonsville, where they filmed Herring, Dashiell and others unloading the stolen goods from the car and bringing them into the home.

According to police officers, they were able to recover the clothing, gloves and headgear worn by the robbers during the robberies, as well as the 76 stolen devices, the pepper spray can used to spray the victims, the stolen wallet of one of the victims, three firearms and a loaded 9 mm Polymer 80 Gray Grip semi-automatic pistol with a black slide and no serial number.

Evidence presented at trial included text messages in which Herring discussed planning the December 23 robbery and iCloud photos that showed Herring carrying large amounts of cash a few hours after the December 17 robbery.

Co-defendant Rico Dashiell, 25, of Fort Washington, Maryland, has already pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison. The co-defendant’s trial is scheduled to begin on September 23.