Tampa has seen the final chapter close on a case involving a quartet of robbers, with the last member of the crew entering a guilty plea for his part in armed robberies at two convenience stores. Jermaine Dawes, aged 33, has accepted responsibility for the crimes, which could land him in prison for decades. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Dawes faces a sentence of up to 20 years for each robbery and a minimum of 7 years to life for the firearm-related charges, the latter to run consecutively with any other sentence.
In a statement obtained by the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced the guilty plea, marking the end of a case that saw Dawes's accomplices, Ronald Brown, E’Barous Harris, and Tra-Vontae Watson, also plead guilty with sentencing on the horizon. Court documents show that back in July 2024, Dawes, and his crew carried out the armed robberies, using two firearms in the process. A few days following the incidents, law enforcement tracked down the defendants to a hotel in Tampa, where their association with the crimes was cemented by surveillance footage and the recovery of a rifle from multiple hotel rooms linked to them.
The investigative effort was a collaborative endeavor, encompassing resources from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, and the Tampa Police Department. The case falls under the larger umbrella of Operation Take Back America, an initiative aiming to dismantle illegal immigration, cartels, and violent crime through a combined force of the Department of Justice's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and Project Safe Neighborhoods.
Details of Dawes's plea reveal the depth of the conspiracy and the serious nature of using firearms in criminal acts. Assistant United States Attorney Samantha Newman, who is prosecuting the case, laid out the key evidence, including the hotel surveillance and the rifle, which was consistent with one of the weapons used during the robberies. Dawes’s sentencing, while not yet scheduled, concludes the proceedings for a group whose actions heightened the dangers of crime in the Tampa area.
