A 23-year-old Philadelphia man will spend the next several years behind bars for his role in a gunpoint robbery at a South Jersey Verizon store that ended with police chasing the getaway car nine miles before cornering the suspects in Northern Liberties. Tymair Harris was sentenced to 52 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his part in the November 2022 heist, which authorities say netted him and his co-conspirators more than $61,000 worth of stolen electronics.
U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced the sentence on September 2, according to the Department of Justice, with U.S. District Judge Kai N. Scott handing down the punishment in federal court in Philadelphia. Court records reviewed by WPG Talk Radio show Harris pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit a robbery interfering with interstate commerce, better known as Hobbs Act robbery, tied to the armed stickup at the Verizon Wireless store on Route 73 in Voorhees, New Jersey.
A Gunpoint Robbery That Turned Into a Cross-State Chase
The robbery unfolded on November 28, 2022, when Harris and his co-conspirators entered the Voorhees Verizon store, according to federal authorities. Harris used a firearm to force employees into a back room, holding them at gunpoint while the group grabbed cell phones and other electronics before fleeing, per the same account. Local police at the time charged Harris — then 19 — alongside co-defendants William L. Coleman and Reginald C. Coleman with state-level robbery, kidnapping and terroristic threats charges, after suspects bound store employees with duct tape, according to Haddonfield Patch.
Police tracked the fleeing suspects using a GPS tracker embedded in one of the stolen devices, a detail confirmed by PhillyVoice. A police helicopter followed the signal as the getaway car crossed state lines, eventually cornering the vehicle in Northern Liberties, where officers arrested three fleeing suspects after a foot chase. The pursuit covered nine miles from Voorhees to Philadelphia, per WPG Talk Radio's report, before Harris was apprehended.
Initial $40,000 Estimate Grew Once Federal Investigators Dug In
Local police on the night of the robbery estimated the stolen merchandise at around $40,000, but federal prosecutors later documented total losses exceeding $61,000 in court filings, according to the Department of Justice. The case was investigated jointly by the FBI Philadelphia Violent Crimes Task Force and the FBI South Jersey Resident Agency, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meghan A. Farley and Lauren Stram.
The April 2025 federal indictment, filed in the case captioned USA v. Coleman, et al., named Harris alongside five co-defendants — Reginald Coleman, William Coleman, Khari Ligon, Dormen Lisby and Randall McMahon — according to court records logged on PacerMonitor. It is not yet clear from available records what has happened to the other co-defendants' cases, or whether a fourth suspect believed to have been involved in the original robbery was ever identified and apprehended.
A Failed Bid to Dismiss the Charges
Before Harris entered his guilty plea, his defense team tried to get the federal indictment thrown out. Judge Scott denied that motion to dismiss on September 16, 2025, according to court filings published on GovInfo, clearing the way for the case to move toward the plea Harris entered the following spring.
Hobbs Act robbery charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1951 carry a maximum statutory penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison per count for commercial robberies found to interfere with interstate commerce, according to a legal explainer published on Medium. Harris's 52-month sentence falls well short of that maximum, but federal inmates do not have access to parole. Prisoners earning the maximum Good Conduct Time allowance, up to 54 days per year, must still serve roughly 85% of their imposed sentence, meaning Harris is expected to serve approximately 44 months in custody before his supervised release begins.
Part of a Broader Decline in Armed Robberies
The sentencing comes as armed robberies involving firearms have been trending downward across Philadelphia. Citywide, gun-involved robberies dropped 19.82% year-to-date through mid-August 2026 compared with the same period the year before, falling from 792 to 635 reported incidents, per Philadelphia Police Department statistics cited in earlier Hoodline reporting. Harris's case, which spanned nearly four years from the initial 2022 robbery to this month's sentencing, illustrates how long a single violent stickup can take to work its way through both state and federal courts before reaching a final resolution.
