DETROIT (WWJ) — A Detroit man has been sentenced to more than seven years behind bars after an alleged two-day crime spree that included stealing nearly 50 guns from a store in Dearborn Heights and leading police on a high-speed chase.
U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison announced Thursday that 29-year-old Deon Bell was sentenced Wednesday to 90 months (7 ½) years in prison for smash-and-grab robberies on back-to-back days.
His sentence will be served consecutively to an 8-and-a-half year sentence for a separate armed robbery case at a T-Mobile store.
In September 2022 Bell recruited three young men — one of whom was a minor — to help him steal guns from a licensed gun store in Dearborn Heights, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Officials say the group stole a car, crashed it into the front of the store and stole 22 weapons.
The very next night, according to Ison' office, Bell struck again, this time recruiting two other juveniles to "join his crime spree." The group again stole a car, crashed it into the same store and stole 25 more guns.
After this second robbery, Bell led police on a high-speed chase, "putting all on the road at risk," the attorney's office said.
Authorities recovered several of the stolen guns in other investigations, but many are still unaccounted for, officials said.
"Stealing cars, crashing them into gun stores to rob them, and putting nearly 50 stolen guns on the street endangered our community in so many ways," Ison said, per a press release. "Worse still is the fact that Bell recruited juveniles to commit these crimes with him. Deon Bell's repeated, reckless violent conduct has no place in our community."
In the separate case involving the T-Mobile robbery, which happened not long after the incidents in Dearborn, Bell "walked into a T-Mobile store in downtown Ann Arbor in the middle of the afternoon" and pulled out what appeared to be a gun.
He demanded the two young employees take him to the safe, where he stole approximately $9,000 in smartphones and smartwatches, federal authorities said at the time of his sentencing in August 2023.
Bell also demanded the money from the register, stealing an additional $381. Before leaving the store, Bell told the employees to "have a blessed day."
"But little did Bell know that the employees were a step ahead and gave him a decoy or tracker phone along with real merchandise, allowing law enforcement to track Bell from the T-Mobile to the store where he resold the goods," officials said in a press release.
These were the most recent convictions for Bell, who has a long criminal history including drug trafficking, carrying a concealed weapon, criminal sexual conduct 3rd degree, and armed robbery.
