Minnesota Treasure Island Casino Robbery Getaway Driver Avoids Prison

The getaway driver in the brutal robbery of a Minnesota casino winner who was followed home has avoided prison after cooperating with prosecutors.

Deangelo Romaine Jacox, 35, of Coon Rapids, was sentenced Tuesday (Oct. 6) to 60 days of electronic home monitoring and three years’ probation, becoming the fifth and final defendant to be sentenced over the December 2023 attack.

The victim, then 67, had won more than $38,000 at Treasure Island Resort & Casino in Welch, Minn., before leaving in the early hours of Dec. 10, 2023.

Prosecutors said Philip William Davids Sr., an acquaintance the victim knew through gambling, tracked his movements inside the casino.

The victim became suspicious and went into a restroom in an attempt to lose Davids, but Davids followed him inside and struck up a conversation.

When the victim arrived home in Mahtomedi around 2:15 a.m., Shawn Eric Lewis Jr. and Tristin Tyler Jacox-Mann attacked him in his driveway, punching and kicking him while demanding his money. The group robbed the man of all his winnings.

When two female relatives emerged from the house, the attackers threatened to kill them, with one pointing a gun at one of the women.

Jacox then drove Lewis Jr. and Jacox-Mann from the scene. The victim pursued their pickup truck and helped police locate the suspects, who were arrested shortly afterward.

Investigators later discovered phone and traffic-camera evidence which prosecutors said showed the robbery was a coordinated operation. Davids had also followed the victim home from the casino exactly two weeks earlier, while alleged ringleader Shawn Eric Lewis Sr. waited near his home.

Jacox Strikes Plea Deal

Jacox pleaded guilty last year to fleeing police in a motor vehicle. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed charges of aiding and abetting first- and second-degree aggravated robbery and aiding and abetting threats of violence.

His comparatively light sentence followed a proffer agreement under which he provided prosecutors with information about the robbery.

“I believe he’s the first one of anybody to have accepted responsibility for his part in the overall scheme,” Jacox’s attorney, Frederick Goetz, told Washington County District Judge Siv Mjanger, according to the Pioneer Press.

Goetz said Jacox’s cooperation was “substantial and instrumental” in resolving the cases against his co-defendants.

Cooperation Split Family

Jacox’s decision to cooperate created lasting tensions within his family, since he and Jacox-Mann are related, his attorney told the court.

“Some think Deangelo did the right thing by stepping up and taking responsibility,” Goetz said. “There are other people who feel the exact opposite.”

The other four defendants pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting first-degree aggravated robbery.

Lewis Sr., described by prosecutors as the operation’s “ringleader,” received 67 months in prison. Lewis Jr. and Jacox-Mann were each sentenced to 58 months, while Davids received 20 months.

“With today’s sentencing, all five people responsible for this violent robbery have been held accountable,” Washington County Attorney Kevin Magnuson told the Pioneer Press.