The last of four teenagers who robbed a Little Rock jewelry store at gunpoint last year has been sentenced to prison.
A clerk at Cecil's Fine Jewelry was beaten during the March 2014 rampage in which the robbers smashed glass display cases to get at the jewelry.
Desha Lasha Dean, 19, was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright in exchange for her guilty plea to felony theft and three counts of robbery, reduced from aggravated robbery, court records show.
According to court files, police reports and court testimony, three robbers, two with guns and the third with a crowbar, entered the store in The Trellis Square Shopping Center on North Rodney Parham Road just after opening. They made the three people inside -- Becky Whelan, the store owner; Mary Whelan, her daughter; and a customer, George Thomsen -- lie on the floor.
The one with the crowbar smashed and emptied cases while the two gunmen took Mary Whelan and made her empty the cash register.
A pistol-toting robber manhandled Whelan back to the front of the store, clubbing her at least twice with the gun. The robber with the shotgun emptied Thomsen's pockets. Whelan called police when the robbers left.
The lead that broke the case also came from Whelan, who told detectives about a man who acted suspiciously during a visit the day before the holdup. She said she'd seen him trying to look into an office in the store so, fearing the store was being cased for a robbery, she had a co-worker write down the license plate number of the car he left in.
Police tracked that car, a Chevrolet Cruze, to Dean's mother, and recognized the teenager from store surveillance video as the woman who had accompanied Demontrez Curtis, 18, to Cecil's the day before the robbery.
Dean directed police to her apartment where police found the jewelry and arrested Curtis and his brother, Demetrius Antonio Curtis, 19, both of North Little Rock along with co-defendant, Dekerious Deshun Robinson, 18, also of North Little Rock. Police also recovered a pistol and shotgun. Police say all four confessed to their involvement, saying they needed money to help support their families.
Demetrius Curtis, who admitted to carrying the shotgun, was sentenced to 20 years in January after pleading guilty to all charges -- three counts of aggravated robbery and two counts of theft.
His brother, Demontrez, who said he carried the crowbar, also pleaded guilty as charged in April in exchange for a 25-year term, while Robinson received a 25-year prison sentence to be followed by a 15-year suspended sentence in exchange for his March guilty plea to all charges, which include a fourth aggravated-robbery count for a holdup at the Family Dollar store at 3409 Baseline Road, three days before Cecil's was robbed.
Metro on 07/23/2015