MEQUON — Two Milwaukee men who allegedly robbed a woman at gunpoint at her Mequon home last year and stole over $50,000 worth of items were charged last week.
Deaires Johnson, 20, and Jhony Marchena, 22, were each charged June 13 in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with one count of armed robbery with use of force. If convicted, the two could both face up to 40 years in prison.
According to the criminal complaint, officers were dispatched to a home in West Mourning Dove Court in the city of Mequon just after 3:20 a.m. April 1, 2023, for an armed robbery report. A woman stated that she pulled into her driveway when she noticed a white sedan parked near the dead-end where her house is located.
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Concerned by the vehicle stopping, the woman put her vehicle in reverse to leave the area, but the sedan quickly pulled to the end of her driveway and three men ran up to her vehicle, according to the complaint.
One man — suspect 1 — ran up to the rear passenger side window of her vehicle, pointed a firearm at her and yelled "Give me everything!" while another — suspect 2 — began opening the front driver’s door of her vehicle just as suspect 1 opened his, the complaint said.
Suspect 2 pushed what the woman believed to be a pistol against her left side and grabbed at the watch on her wrist. Suspect 1, who sat next to her and continued to point his gun at her, told her to look down and then grabbed her watch after she took it off, as well as ripped a necklace from her neck as she unclasped it.
A third person — suspect 3 — then opened the rear passenger door and entered the vehicle, pushing a pistol into the woman’s right side. That suspect asked the two others if they had the watch, to which one replied yes. Suspect 3 also asked the woman where the money was, but she said that she didn’t have any, according to the complaint.
One of the suspects stated "take the purse!" and suspect 1 then asked who was in the house, according to the complaint. All three suspects then ran back to the sedan and fled the scene.
A $30,000 white gold Cartier diamond watch, a $20,000 white gold baguette diamond necklace, a $1,500 brown Louis Vuitton tote, $500 cash in all 20s, a $1,000 Jaguar F-Pace key fob, and a $1,000 iPhone 13 Pro Max were all stolen from her.
An officer checked the Mequon Flock cameras and located the woman’s vehicle driving north on Cedarburg Road at 3:09 a.m. A vehicle matching the suspect vehicle description drove past the same camera 10 seconds later, according to the complaint.
It was learned that the white sedan had a stolen license plate through the Milwaukee Police Department, which provided an incident report regarding the stolen license plate. The plate was on a white Honda Accord during a theft incident, according to the complaint, and one of the vehicle occupants was identified via photo array as Johnson.
A day after the Mequon robbery, a Mequon sergeant received a call from a Milwaukee PD officer, who advised that the suspect vehicle had been located in Milwaukee and that they had recovered the stolen license plate observed in the FLOCK camera footage. The vehicle, which was stolen out of Lake Zurich, Ill., had been found unoccupied/parked on the street along West Thurston Court, the complaint said.
Another Mequon officer received an inmate phone call recording from the Milwaukee PD. The inmate spoke to another man at around 12:30 p.m. April 1, 2023, according to the complaint. The other man told the inmate that he “came up on” the woman and got a watch, chain, and cash. The inmate asked to see the items and it is believed they then got on a video call.
A lieutenant from the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center believes the inmate was talking to Johnson, who had a Cartier watch and heavy gold chain with diamonds visible. The inmate made multiple phone and video calls to that same phone number on April 1, 2 and 3 of 2023.
The calls revealed that the other party to the call, along with someone else, stole a watch, chain and $2,000 cash from a person with the same first name as the woman, the complaint said. One of the video calls showed a man, which the lieutenant believed to be Johnson, wearing jewelry that matched the description of what was taken in the robbery. A Mequon detective also reviewed the recordings and identified the man as Johnson.
On May 12, 2023, the woman contacted the detective and told him that she believed she had located her stolen watch on the internet. The woman was able to identify the watch located on the person’s wrist, and though his name wasn’t listed, the woman believed that he was one of the subjects involved in the robbery, due to the blue stick on the watch that also had the same missing diamonds.
Using several pictures from the social media account, the detective requested other police agencies to help identify the man wearing the watch. A New Berlin Police Department detective ultimately believed the subject in the photo was someone who was recently charged in Milwaukee County. On May 17, 2023, Milwaukee officers provided information regarding a street crew that lives and commits crimes in the city of Milwaukee. They stated that four people, including Marchena and Johnson, are all in the same crew and commit armed robberies, car thefts and car jackings, according to the complaint.
The stolen vehicle was being used by Johnson when Johnson and other suspects sold a stolen vehicle to a victim in Milwaukee, the complaint said. After the victim purchased the vehicle, he was informed by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation the vehicle had been reported stolen and he could not register it. The victim then went to Milwaukee Police to report the fraud.
On July 19, 2023 Mequon went to Red Granite Correctional Institution to interview Marchena.
Marchena was shown a photograph of himself taken from a rap video that was posted online. Marchena stated that it was him in the photograph and that he got the watch he was wearing from another person.
