Baltimore Teen Found Guilty of Carjackings, Kidnapping, Sex Offense
A Baltimore teen who was 14 when he and five others orchestrated a series of armed carjackings, robberies, and kidnappings was convicted Monday of dozens of felony offenses.
The teen was found guilty of 30 charges related to 11 incidents over eight days, ranging from west Baltimore almost to Pikesville and spilling over into Baltimore County.
The group ambushed people in their cars or on the street at gunpoint, stealing vehicles, phones, and cash. They forced some victims to withdraw money from ATMs or give them access to banking apps.
One teen ordered a gun accessory through a victim’s Amazon account and had it delivered to his mother’s home. The transaction helped police locate the suspects.
The total amount of money and items stolen topped $25,000.
Prosecutors presented jurors with a host of evidence, including fingerprints, video surveillance, and social media photos.
In her closing arguments, Assistant Attorney General Nancy Frigo showed jurors Instagram posts and messages implicating the teen. One message said, “We going to be jumping out on some shit.”
“Who are they going to be jumping out on?” Frigo asked jurors. “Unsuspecting people, not paying attention, sitting in their car — crimes of opportunity — any chance they get to stick a gun in somebody’s face and take a car.”
Several Instagram photos of the group showed the teens posing with guns and showing off fanned-out handfuls of cash.
The jury found the defendant not guilty of rape but guilty of a lesser charge of third-degree sex offense for sexually assaulting a victim in the back of a car.
After four days of testimony, the Baltimore County jury convicted the defendant, now 17, on multiple counts of armed carjacking, armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, weapons offenses, conspiracy, and of being part of a criminal organization.
“This was a bunch of teenagers getting together to do horrible things on the spur of the moment,” said defense attorney Kim McGee. “This was not a criminal organization.”
The teen turned down a plea offer of 20 to 30 years in prison. He now potentially faces a lengthier sentence. All of his co-defendants entered guilty pleas earlier this year.
[See related story here https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17yWYnQmzv/?mibextid=wwXIfr]
Judge Robert Cahill denied a defense request Monday to have the teen sent back to the Charles H. Hickey Jr. detention center and school for juveniles, where he had been held for several years prior to his conviction. He will remain at the county detention center until sentencing next year.
HONOR AMONG THIEVES?
The loosely connected crew of Baltimore teenagers may have been robbers, kidnappers, and carjackers, but they had lines they would not cross, one co-defendant told jurors during the trial.
A co-defendant said he was upset when he found the defendant sexually assaulting a woman they had kidnapped, he testified.
“I started fussing at him,” he told jurors Thursday. “Like, excuse my language, but what the f— was he doing? She had her clothes off. I never thought it would happen, for real.”
Thr co-defendant testified in exchange for a significantly lighter sentence in his own case on condition that he testify truthfully.
The defense called thr co-defendant “the actual rapist” and said the defendant was the “designated fall guy.”
The 22-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted also took the witness stand last week and described the night she was pulled from a car, forced into another car, and sexually assaulted.
She had been on a date earlier that night with a man from Silver Spring. The two chose to go to a movie theater outside the city, she said, because Baltimore was too dangerous.
As the evening wrapped up, she and her date sat in his car outside her family’s home on the 2400 block of Brohawn Avenue and watched a show. As the credits rolled, four gunmen appeared — two on each side of the car. All but the defendant wore masks, she said. They forced her into another car driven by two young women, she testified Thursday.
The defendant was in the back seat with her, she said. He typed out a message on the Notes app of her phone asking her about oral sex. She resisted, but he had a gun in his lap and kept waving it around, she said.
The assault then turned into intercourse, she said, and continued as the car drove around for hours. It ended when Shields pulled up in a car beside them, saw what was happening, and put a stop to it, she testified.
She picked the defendant out of a photo lineup after the assault.
DEFENSE HIGHLIGHTS INCONSISTENCIES
The defense team highlighted inconsistencies in her description of her attacker. She thought he was about her height, when the defendant was actually five inches taller at the time. She told officers she thought the women in the car called her attacker Tyrone or Tyrique, different from the defendant’s name. She believed his hair was extremely short or nearly bald, when it was longer. She said he wore a plain black hoodie, when the one the defendant wore that night had the words North Face in large letters across the front.
The defendant’s fingerprints— not Shields’ — were found in her date’s car, even though Shields testified he was the one driving the male victim’s 2017 Honda Accord. Shields explained that he wore gloves.
Shields said he and the defendant had both cut off their ankle monitors from juvenile detention in the days before the carjacking spree.
The defendant’s mother testified she called the Department of Juvenile Services to report he had come home. She said he suffers from mental health problems and was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward from Nov. 12–14, 2022, after which police took him into custody.
Co-defendant Rayquan Pierce was sentenced to 14 years in prison earlier this year; Shamar Anderson received 25 years; Jamarie Ward has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced Jan. 30, 2026; Ammar Shields will be sentenced Jan. 13, 2026; and Tre’Quon Maye was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty.