A 31-year-old St. Louis man who carjacked a woman near Forest Park, then tried to make a quiet exit on a MetroBus, is headed to federal prison for more than a decade.
Senior U.S. District Judge John A. Ross on Tuesday sentenced Deionte Grice to 162 months in federal prison, a 13½-year term, for a January 5 carjacking involving a 2020 Kia Optima in the 5300 block of Devonshire Avenue. Investigators said Grice forced the victim out of her car, drove it into Forest Park where it became disabled, abandoned the vehicle, and boarded a MetroBus, where police detained him and recovered the victim’s purse and two handguns.
According to RiverBender, Judge Ross imposed the sentence at a hearing in federal court on Tuesday. The outlet reports that the case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Martin, that Grice had previously pleaded guilty, and that he is a 31-year-old St. Louis resident.
Grice pleaded guilty in October to one count of carjacking and one count of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. The office’s summary states that Grice also admitted he violated supervised release tied to a 2020 conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and that officers found two handguns inside the stolen purse after stopping the bus. Prosecutors noted that the charged statutes expose defendants to up to 15 years for carjacking, along with a mandatory consecutive seven-year term for the firearm count.
The federal court’s daily docket lists the case as 4:24-cr-00346-JAR, shows a sentencing entry on Tuesday in Courtroom 3N, and confirms the matter was handled by Judge Ross. The docket is maintained by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
How the MetroBus ride ended the chase
Investigators said the confrontation started when the victim parked her Kia Optima on Devonshire. Grice approached, brandished a weapon, and demanded her keys, phone, and purse before driving off in the car, according to case details described in local reporting. He then headed toward Forest Park, struck a curb, and disabled the vehicle.
Grice abandoned the car and tried to blend in on a MetroBus, but officers caught up with him there. St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officers detained him on the bus and recovered the victim’s stolen items, along with two handguns that had been tucked into the purse.
What the sentence covers
Federal carjacking cases that involve firearms are rarely small-time events in the sentencing world. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has emphasized that brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence requires a mandatory consecutive prison term under federal law, which stacks on top of the punishment for the underlying carjacking.
Grice’s acknowledgment that he violated supervised release from his prior federal felon-in-possession conviction also weighed into the outcome, prosecutors said. Taken together, the counts, the firearm enhancement, and his criminal record added up to a multi-year sentence that will be served in a federal correctional facility rather than a state institution.
Where this case fits in
Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Missouri have been seeking lengthy terms in violent carjacking cases in and around St. Louis, and a number of defendants have ended up with double-digit sentences in recent years. Local reporting and case listings that track similar sentences across the metro area help show how judges and prosecutors have handled armed vehicle thefts.
Neither the U.S. Attorney’s Office nor the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department offered additional comment beyond public statements and court filings. The victim’s name does not appear in the public court documents, which is consistent with common federal victim-privacy practices.
