Source: United States Department of Justice News
MINNEAPOLIS – A Minneapolis man was sentenced to 210 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release for the armed robberies of two Speedway gas stations and a Super 8 Hotel, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.
According to court documents, on February 4, 2020, Keanu Dewone Ross, 30, entered a Speedway gas station in Columbia Heights, pulled what appeared to be a firearm, and demanded cash from the register and the safe. Ross stole $140 in cash, various tobacco products, and several lottery tickets, before fleeing the scene in a waiting SUV parked several blocks away with his co-defendant, Antoinette Deniece Mae Dobyne, 30. On February 12, 2020, Ross entered a Speedway in Fridley, pulled what appeared to be a firearm, and demanded cash from the register. Ross ordered the employee to the ground and kicked the employee in the face. Ross fled the store with more than $700 in cash, tobacco products, and lottery tickets. On three separate days in February, surveillance camera footage showed Ross and Dobyne cashing some of the stolen lottery tickets at two different gas stations.
According to court documents, on February 14, 2020, Ross and another man were driven to the area of the Super 8 Hotel in Brooklyn Center by Dobyne in her SUV. The men entered the hotel and ordered a hotel employee to the ground at gunpoint. Ross and the other man took the employee’s cell phone and car keys, and over $550 cash from the business. The men then told the employee to run from the scene. As the employee fled on foot, he heard gunshots. Officers recovered a discharged .380-caliber cartridge casing at the scene of the robbery. Surveillance camera footage showed the two men committing the robbery as described by the employee. The footage also showed the two men running from the hotel after the robbery toward an SUV and then fleeing on foot after the SUV got stuck in a snowbank. BCPD officers located Dobyne in the SUV at the scene. A warrant-authorized search of the SUV revealed Ross’s wallet and identification, and a black duffle bag full of various tobacco products.
According to court documents, later that same day, Ross was detained during a traffic stop by officers with the Minneapolis Police Department. Officers confiscated a Taurus Model PT738 .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol that was found on Ross’s person along with a large amount of cash. Subsequent forensic ballistics analysis using the discharged .380-caliber cartridge casing recovered at the scene of the hotel robbery revealed that the firearm confiscated from Ross’s person was the same gun that was fired during the Super 8 Hotel robbery. On January 19, 2022, Ross pleaded guilty to three counts of aiding and abetting interference with commerce by robbery and one count of using, carrying, and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. He was sentenced yesterday by Senior U.S. District Judge David S. Doty and ordered to pay more than $1,850 in restitution to the businesses that were robbed. Dobyne’s sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date.
This case was the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Minneapolis Police Department, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Brooklyn Center Police Department, the Columbia Heights Police Department, the Fridley Police Department, and the Hennepin County Crime Lab.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar prosecuted the case.