Washington D.C. man sentenced to 20 years for two Baltimore County phone store robberies

BALTIMORE, MD—A Washington D.C. man has been sentenced for the armed robberies of two cell phone stores in Baltimore County in December 2020, a federal judge in Maryland announced this week.

Donte Antwaun Herring was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by three years of court supervision after he was convicted of the two robberies in March 2024.

On December 17, 2020, Herring and a co-conspirator, who was later identified as Rico Dashiell, entered a phone store in Halethorpe and robbed it at gunpoint, prosecutors said. The two men stole multiple boxes of Apple cell phones, watches, iPads, and cash from the store and fled.

Witnesses say that on December 23, 2020, Herring and Dashiell went into another phone store in Owings Mills, where Herring stole a victim’s wallet and a total of 76 electronic devices.

The two men were able to flee the store with the help of Dashiell, who was able to divert a victim employee into an room at gunpoint while Herring and he opened the safe. They took the electronic devices and cash from the safe and put them in large garbage bags before leaving the room.

Police were able to track the vehicle that Herring and Dashiell used to flee the store to a home in Catonsville, where aviation units were able to film Herring, Dashiell, and the co-conspirator unloading the stolen merchandise from the car and taking it into the residence.

As detailed in trial testimony, law enforcement officers arrived at the residence and attempted for hours to make contact with the suspects and other occupants of the residence. After two young children who lived at the residence (who had no relation to the robbers) came out of the house, law enforcement executed a search warrant of the residence and arrested the robbers, who had been hiding in the attic. During a search incident to arrest, law enforcement seized, among other things, $622.16 from the co-conspirator ($322 of which was proceeds from the robbery), along with a round of ammunition.

A search of the home also revealed clothing, gloves, and headwear that Herring and Dashiell had worn during the robberies. Police also found a canister of pepper spray and multiple text messages in which Herring had planned the robbery of the Owings Mills store.

On March 1, 2024, a federal jury convicted Herring of the robberies after less than an hour of deliberation. On Monday, August 19, 2024, he was sentenced. A trial for Dashiell, a 25-year-old man from Fort Washington, Maryland, is scheduled to begin on September 23, 2024.

This article was written with the assistance of AI and reviewed by a human editor.

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