Fourth man pleads guilty in Apollo robbery
Published 7:01 am Sunday, May 29, 2016
The fourth man who was arrested in March in connection with the Apollo Liquor & Superette robbery has pleaded guilty.
Treshawn Shane Johnson, 19, of Rochester pleaded guilty to felony simple robbery Friday in Mower County court as part of a plea agreement. He had also faced felony first-degree aggravated robbery charges, but they were dismissed as part of the agreement.
The charges stem from an incident where a group of men shoved a clerk and took four bottles of alcohol on the day before Thanksgiving.
While three men — Levell Devell Booth, 22, Leonard Lamar Booth, 24, and David Ansell Dorenzo, 21 — were arrested that day, a fourth suspect fled.
Eventually, the other suspects led police to a man found in Ohio, but he told police they were really looking for Johnson, who was a known associate of the Booths, according to the police report.
Johnson was eventually found and arrested in February while residing in Rochester under the street name “Tre8.”
Officers responded to a report of a robbery at Apollo Liquor, 903 W. Oakland Ave., around 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 25, 2015.
Two store clerks told an officer four males fled the store without paying for four bottles of cognac valued at about $204, according to a police report.
The report stated the clerk at the register thought the men might steal something, and the second clerk in the back said he saw on the cameras three of the men stuffing bottles of liquor in their sweatshirts, and he went and stood in front of the door. Then one of the men pushed him out of the way and he fell back against a counter, hurting his back.
The suspects then fled east on First Avenue Southwest in a Buick LeSabre.
An officer located the suspects’ vehicle and two men fled the car. A second officer saw two of the suspects running north on Fourth Street Southwest between houses along the street.
The officer apprehended Dorenzo, and other officers apprehended Booth, who was in the back seat of the car.
An officer found a large, unopened bottle of Hennessy cognac in the Buick, and a witness gave an officer a Remy Martin Champagne Cognac box with an unopened bottle of liquor, which he found in his yard between his house and garage. Officers also found a bottle of Remy Martin 1738 in the front seat of the Buick.
Banfield Elementary School was on a soft lockdown for a time during the incident.
Levell was sentenced on Feb. 12 to 17 months in prison. Leonard pleaded not guilty on Dec. 10, 2015. His pre-trial is scheduled for April 14 and the jury trial is scheduled for April 25. David also pleaded not guilty on Dec. 10.
Johnson is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 5.