TAMPA, Fla. – Four Tampa men will spend over a decade each behind bars after a federal judge handed down sentences for their roles in a pair of armed convenience store robberies.
U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday sentenced 32-year-old Tra-Vontae Watson to 20 years and 5 months in prison, while Ronald Brown, 25, received a 15-year sentence. Jermaine Dawes, 33, was sentenced to 14 years and 10 months, and E’barous Harris, 27, was given 14 years and 7 months.
All four men had previously entered guilty pleas.
Court documents and proceedings show that the group conspired together to rob the stores in July 2024. During the heists, Harris, Watson, and Brown entered the businesses while Dawes served as the lookout and getaway driver. Watson and Brown brandished firearms during the robberies, which they used to steal cash from both locations.
Law enforcement officers tracked the group down at a Tampa motel. Hotel surveillance footage captured the four men getting in and out of the getaway vehicle.
The video also showed them loading a large firearm, later identified as a rifle, into the car. Investigators subsequently executed search warrants on multiple hotel rooms tied to the men, uncovering a rifle that matched the weapon seen on the surveillance footage and used in the crimes.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, and the Tampa Police Department jointly investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorney Samantha Newman handled the prosecution.
The prosecution falls under Operation Take Back America, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative designed to direct full federal resources toward repelling illegal immigration, eliminating cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and protecting communities from violent crime.
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