A man celebrating his birthday at a Tampa Airbnb rental says he was jumped, beaten and robbed, then found slumped in his vehicle with significant facial injuries after deputies were alerted by his own iPhone. Four people are now facing charges in connection with the attack, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
According to a statement from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office
, deputies were called to the scene after an iPhone crash alert led them to a vehicle on East 21st Avenue just before 1 a.m. on October 15. The driver they found there told deputies he had been attacked and robbed shortly before they arrived, and he was discovered with significant facial injuries, per the same post. The robbery itself is reported to have happened at an Airbnb rental on the 7800 block of New York Drive in Tampa, where the man had reportedly been marking his birthday before the alleged assault.
Investigators say the man had been asleep in his vehicle when several people approached him, and that the group then assaulted him and stole his valuables. Deputies allege 20-year-old Dashawn Carter threatened the victim with a firearm during the encounter, according to the sheriff's office's arrest records.
Who Was Arrested and What They're Charged With
Carter was booked on charges of aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony with a weapon and robbery of $750 or more but less than $20,000, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office arrest inquiry system. The same robbery charge — $750 or more but less than $20,000 — was also filed against 19-year-old Aubree Stinson and 17-year-old Shyanne Johnson, the arrest records show.
A fourth suspect, 20-year-old Kenneth House Jr., faces a different set of charges: third-degree grand theft between $750 and $5,000, burglary of an occupied conveyance, and two separate violation-of-probation counts tied to burglary and grand theft, per the arrest inquiry records. Florida law defines third-degree grand theft and the robbery thresholds cited in the case under Florida Statutes Chapter 812, Section 014, while the robbery charges against Carter, Stinson and Johnson fall under the state's robbery statute at Chapter 812, Section 13.
The Thin Line Between Arrest and Conviction
None of the four suspects has been convicted, and the sheriff's office's own arrest database is explicit on that point. The system cautions that an arrest does not imply guilt and should not be treated as a person's actual criminal record or as the outcome of a trial, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office's published disclaimer. No bond amounts, court dates or prosecutorial decisions from the State Attorney's Office have been released in connection with the case.
The broader legal framework for theft and burglary offenses in Florida, including the thresholds that separate misdemeanor theft from third-degree grand theft, is laid out across Chapter 812 of the Florida Statutes. Those statutes form the basis for the charges filed against all four suspects in this case, though how the charges ultimately play out in court remains to be seen.
The sheriff's office has not released additional details about how deputies connected the vehicle on East 21st Avenue to the robbery scene on New York Drive, nor has it specified how many people were involved beyond the four suspects named in the arrests. For now, the case stands as reported: a birthday night in a Tampa short-term rental that ended with one man bloodied in his car and four young people in custody.
