Despite years of police warnings about the dangers of meeting strangers to buy or sell items found online, criminals continue to use social media markets to lure victims into robbery traps. This week, one of those robbers, caught last summer because Chicago police were surveilling the area with a drone, was sent to prison — on his 24th birthday.
It all went down on an August afternoon last year in the 2900 block of West Warren Boulevard, a site where CPD had warned the public that online marketplace rip-offs were taking place. After CPD issued the community alert in June 2024, the number of robberies ballooned over the summer, prompting investigators to tap into the city’s growing fleet of surveillance drones.
As a SWAT team’s drone quietly looked on from above, a 24-year-old Braidwood man rolled onto the street to buy a motorized dirt bike that he saw advertised on Facebook Marketplace. That’s the same scenario CPD mentioned was being used to attract victims to the robbery trap.
Lajuan Gaines, 22, of Carpentersville, allegedly pretended to be the seller, the report said, while Davontae Harvey stood in a neighboring yard “making furtive movements” with a gun that turned out to be fake. Before they could rob the victim, Chicago cops moved in and arrested them both, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors alleged that Gaines had been involved in several similar armed robberies over the summer, in addition to the attempt that police foiled. They said he pistol-whipped and threatened victims, who were all men, and took their cash and phones. He continues to fight the allegations.
Prosecutors only charged Harvey with the attempted robbery that police monitored from overhead. They said CPD’s drone allowed cops to follow him as he ran from the area and changed his sweatshirt under a staircase. It also allowed CPD to show that there was no dirt bike in the area for anyone to buy.
At the time of the foiled robbery, both Gaines and Harvey were on pretrial release for felony gun charges they picked up separately over the summer of 2024, according to court records.
Now, Harvey has put the gun case and the attempted robbery case behind him by pleading guilty to both charges.
On Wednesday, Judge Joanne Rosado sentenced him to four years for the robbery and Judge Thomas Byrne sentenced him to three consecutive years on the gun charge, according to court records. With good behavior, he’ll be released after serving 3½ years.
Harvey arrived at the Stateville Correctional Center reception center on Thursday. It was his 24th birthday.
Original reporting you’ll see nowhere else, paid for by our readers. Click here to support our work.
