Getaway Driver Sentenced in Minnesota Treasure Island Casino Robbery

The getaway driver in a brutal Minnesota home invasion targeting a Treasure Island Casino winner has avoided prison after cooperating with prosecutors.

Deangelo Romaine Jacox, 35, was sentenced Tuesday to 60 days of electronic home monitoring and three years of probation, becoming the fifth and final defendant sentenced in connection with a violent December 2023 casino-tracking robbery.

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

Prosecutors said Philip William Davids Sr., a casino acquaintance, tracked the winner’s movements on the gaming floor. Unaware he was being targeted, the victim became suspicious of Davids and tried to lose him inside a restroom, but Davids followed him inside to strike up a conversation while signaling co-conspirators outside.

When the victim arrived at his Mahtomedi home around 2:15 a.m., Shawn Eric Lewis Jr. and Tristin Tyler Jacox-Mann ambushed him in his driveway. The pair punched and kicked the elderly winner while demanding his payout, eventually stripping him of the entire $38,000 stash.

When two female relatives ran out of the house to intervene, one attacker pointed a handgun at them and threatened to kill them.

Jacox served as the getaway driver, speeding Lewis Jr. and Jacox-Mann away in a pickup truck. Undeterred, the victim pursued the fleeing vehicle in his own car, providing real-time updates that allowed police to intercept and arrest the suspects shortly after.

Investigators later uncovered phone records and traffic-camera footage demonstrating a sophisticated, coordinated tracking plot. Records showed Davids had even trailed the same victim home from Treasure Island two weeks earlier while alleged ringleader Shawn Eric Lewis Sr. waited near the home.

Plea Deal and Light Sentence

Jacox pleaded guilty last year to fleeing police in a motor vehicle. In exchange for his cooperation, prosecutors dismissed serious felony counts of aiding and abetting first- and second-degree aggravated robbery and threats of violence.

His light sentence—avoiding prison time entirely—followed a proffer agreement in which Jacox provided critical testimony detailing the heist.

“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 added that Jacox’s cooperation was “substantial and instrumental” in securing convictions 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.