MJP –
A man from the Houston region was given a long prison term for a series of robberies he committed soon after being released from prison for another theft-related offense.
The 25-year-old defendant, Quantez Whiteside, received a 21-year and 6-month prison term.
In January 2021, Whiteside committed three robberies at Metro by T-Mobile (formerly Metro PCS) stores in the Houston region. He stole cell phones and cash from each store while frightening two of the victims with a gun.
He claims that ever since the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022, he has been singled out and blamed by the Uvalde school police community.
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Whiteside had given a Metro employee his number while claiming to be wanting to buy a cell phone just before one of the thefts. He made off with the stolen goods when the employee entered the number and linked it to Whiteside’s account at the store.
Authorities wasted little time utilizing Whiteside’s bank details to track him down to his home, where they retrieved the loot and firearms from a pink carry-all.
Whiteside was released from jail not long before the mobile phone robberies in 2019. He had served a two-year sentence for his role in the 2018 robbery of a Domino’s Pizza delivery driver.
The unintentional shooting of an 11-year-old by a relative who is 15 years old; the kid committed suicide later on U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt imposed the term, which covers three charges of robbery interfering with commerce and two counts of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence.
Because he perpetrated the offenses while serving an 18-month term for a previous robbery conviction, his sentence was lengthened.
“As this spree progressed, the robber got sloppy and left his cell number, which essentially served as breadcrumbs leading investigators right to him,” stated U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.
The fact that he had already served two years in federal prison did not stop him from perpetrating these acts. Given today’s punishment, he has plenty of time to think about how he wronged the victims.