GREENSBORO — Three men were sentenced Wednesday on federal charges stemming from crimes committed in Richmond County over the past 14 months.
Aaron Michael Dohogn and Brandon Jaquan Jones were both convicted on federal firearms charges and Jason Haynes West was convicted in a December bank robbery.
According to Randy Tysinger, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, all three men were convicted on May 4.
ROBBING THE SHERIFF
When Richmond County Sheriff James E. Clemmons Jr. got into his car the morning of Feb. 19, he noticed the glove box was open, according to court documents. When he checked the trunk, Clemmons found that two department-issued firearms had been taken: a Colt M4 carbine 5.56mm rifle and a Heckler and Koch UMP 0.45-caliber ACP submachine gun. The carrying cases and extra magazines for the weapons were also missing.
Investigators found that several other vehicles — a 2000 Jaguar XJ8, a 2000 Ford F-150 truck and a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee — had also been broken into.
The same day, Joseph Allen Bowman reported that his truck, a 1997 Ford F-150, had been stolen from his Covington Street home — one street over from where the sheriff’s car had been broken into.
Aaron Michael Dohogn was arrested shortly before midnight the following day when an officer with the Delta Company Police, a private security firm working for Motel 6, spotted the truck in Aberdeen.
Katie Marie Johnson, of Laurel Hill, was also arrested.
According to witnesses, Dohogn had tried to sell the firearms the day of the theft.
William Jones, of Laurinburg, told investigators Dohogn wanted $2,000 for the firearms. Jones didn’t have the money, but took the M4 on pawn for $200, and bought a trailer hitch from Dohogn for $10. He also declined to buy the stolen truck for $300.
After recovering the weapon, Jones told deputies that Dohogn called to say he had fired the other gun and “the weapon shot so fast that the barrel overheated.”
After she was appointed an attorney, Johnson agreed to take deputies to the location of the missing gun: a dog house behind Dohogn’s mother’s home in Laurel Hill. Deputies also recovered a black bag with stolen mail addressed to people in Hamlet.
“The case was turned over to the Middle District of the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Clemmons told the Daily Journal over the phone on Wednesday. “They handled it from there.”
Clemmons, an original member and former commander of the Special Response Team, said he had those weapons so he’d be “just another man to add to the team in case we have an event.”
A federal grand jury indicted Dohogn in late March of possessing machine guns and possessing stolen machine guns, in violation of federal code.
He was sentenced to four years and four months in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a three-year term of supervised release and a $100 special assessment.
BICYCLE BANK ROBBERY
Around 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 23, 2014, a man walked into the Hamlet BB&T bank wearing a white toboggan and white gloves, with his face concealed, and handed the first available teller a note that read: “(I) have a gun I will kill you give me your 10s 50s and 20s fast 10 seconds.”
The teller gave the robber $1,100 in cash. He then fled the bank, leaving the note behind.
While reviewing the surveillience tape, deputies noticed the man, wearing a tan-colored jacket with a green hoodie underneath, arrived on an orange bicycle.
A witness, who had briefly spoken with the suspect prior to the robbery, told deputies she recognized him because he had been banned from Dollar General, where she worked. While the witness did not know his name, deputies later identified him as Jason Haynes West, also known as “Boomer.” At the time, West had an outstanding warrant for arrest on a probation violation.
Nearly a week later, employees at Fidelity Bank called Hamlet police to report a suspicious person on a bike wearing a black hoodie. While driving around, police saw a man matching the description on the railroad tracks behind a pawn shop.
Hamlet Police Chief Scott Waters found an orange bike, matching the one seen in the survellience video, next to an abandoned building near EZ Pawn Shop.
Police then surrounded the building and called in a K-9 unit. When they entered the building, they found West, wearing the same jacket seen in the video, hiding inside.
West had been charged several months prior with stealing items from a Hamlet Avenue business and a Jefferson Street home.
A grand jury indicted West in February for the bank robbery.
He was sentenced to three and a half years in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a 3-year term of supervised release and a $100 special assessment.
FELON WITH A FIREARM
Mottie Fowler woke up the morning of Aug. 24, 2014, to find his Mossberg 12-guage pistol-grip shotgun had been stolen from behind the seat of his truck, and filed a report with the sheriff’s office.
Later that day, deputies responded to a call of shots fired in Dobbins Heights. A witness flagged down a deputy to stop a blue Ford Taurus — where a man soon entered the passenger side — that was in front of him.
The deputy stopped the vehicle at the Circle B Convenience Store and was given permission to search by the driver, Ougmetta Edwards.
Edwards and her passenger, Brandon Jaquan Jones, stepped out of the vehicle and when the deputy opened the back door to begin the search, Jones fled the scene.
Deputies found the shotgun in the backseat wrapped in a burgundy towel.
Witnesses told deputies they had seen Jones fire the weapon four or five times, then wrap it in a towel and hide it in the woods and later retrieve it after several patrol cars had passed by.
Jones was indicted by a grand jury in September of that year on commerce charges related to the shotgun and 59 rounds of .22-caliber ammunition.
He was also a felon, having been convicted on charges of common-law robbery, selling cocaine and two counts of larceny of a dog.
Jones was sentenced to eight years and four months in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a 3-year term of supervised release and a $100 special assessment.
Reach reporter William R. Toler at 910-817-2675 and follow him on Twitter @William_r_Toler.
