Man charged with possession of stolen vehicle could be part of theft and burglary ring
Washington Park Police arrested a man they believe is tied to a rash of carjackings and thefts throughout the region.
Deonta Spates, 18, of East St. Louis, was charged Friday by the St. Clair County States Attorney’s office with possession of a stolen vehicle.
In the last three weeks, police have located two cars stolen from Chesterfield, Missouri, another from Webster Groves and one more from Hazlewood. All were found in Washington Park.
Spates’ bail was set at $65,000. He is currently being held at the St. Louis County Jail. According to police he has named his co-conspirators in the home invasions and car thefts as Alonzo and Arenzo Hoffman, also of East St. Louis. They have been charged in St. Louis County but not St. Clair County.
Washington Park Detective Matthew Garrett said Spates and the Hoffman brothers are “known for jacking cars and doing home burglaries. They have their own little street gang called the Stephy Mob. We found four cars on 58th Street.”
During a police interview, Spates admitted to home burglaries in Chesterfield and St. Charles, and implicated the Hoffman brothers as his accomplices.
A GMC Yukon also was stolen from O’Fallon, Missouri.
While police were towing a stolen Toyota Camry, Spates was seen walking down the street toward them.
“I called the suspect over to me, but he refused to come,” Garrett said. “He had his hands in his pockets. I told him to take them out and I saw a driver’s license sticking out of his pocket.”
With a search of Spates’ pockets, police discovered a remote vehicle key that activated the Camry. Spates also was in possession of credit cards and identification documents that belonged to the vehicle’s owners, Garret said.
Spates, Alonzo Hoffman, 20, and Arenzo Hoffman, 18, were charged in St. Louis. Charges in Illinois are still pending. Arenzo Hoffman also is being sought by police in East St. Louis in connection with a 2018 burglary, East St. Louis Police Lt. Gilda Johnson said.
Various law enforcement officials know the brothers for car thefts and home invasions. Alonzo was charged by St. Louis County Police with resisting arrest for a felony and first-degree tampering. Arenzo, was also charged with resisting arrest for a felony and second-degree tampering.
The charging document said Alonzo Hoffman, of 1504 Martin Luther King, East St. Louis, was also charged with burglary, two counts of stealing, tampering and resisting arrest. The document said Alonzo, on March 17, acting with others, went to a residence at 404 Coventry Trail Lane in Maryland Heights to steal a motorcycle and credit cards, police said.
He also was charged with theft of a gray 2017 Nissan Pathfinder on March 19, which he used to flee police, leading to charges of resisting arrest and interference.
Arenzo Hoffman, of 201 Wimmer Place, Apt. 8, in East St. Louis, is charged with resisting/interfering with an arrest for a felony and tampering with a motor vehicle. The charging document said Arenzo “acknowledged he was a passenger in the gray 2017 Nissan Pathfinder, knowing the vehicle was stolen.”
He admitted to fleeing from police on foot. The document said Arenzo, because of an outstanding warrant for failure to appear, would not appear in court to answer a summons.
“He is cursing the victim, has hit the victim and is threatening the victim,” the arresting document states.. “He is a danger to the community or to any other person because he has threatened the witnesses. He threatened to kill all of the witnesses.”
In a police interview, Alonzo Hoffman acknowledged that he stood guard on March 17 as two suspects entered a residence at 404 Coventry Trail Lane in Maryland Heights, Missouri, to steal credit cards, a purse and two sets of keys that went to the Pathfinder, police said.
He also admitted to being the driver of the Pathfinder that fled from Cahokia police into St. Louis County on March 19.
The Hoffman brothers were captured on Fox2 Now Sky Cam video fleeing from police out of Cahokia last week after they committed a home invasion on Drexel.
Cahokia Police Chief Dave Landmann said his officers terminated a police pursuit at the Jefferson Barracks Bridge due to safety reasons. The video showed the suspects weaving in and out of traffic, driving on the shoulders of the different highways to evade police. It appeared the vehicle ran out of gas when the two suspects, later identified as Alonzo Hoffman and Arenzo Hoffman, bailed out and tried to run away on foot.
Two Dupo police officers captured them. The woman whose home they broke into saw them in the police chase on television news and called police. She identified the driver of the stolen vehicle as the suspect who startled her while she was sleeping and who took a 65 inch flat screen from her home.
“The homeowner had camera footage of the SUV that was on television with the people we now know as the Hoffman brothers inside of it, pulling into his driveway,” Washington Park’s Garrett said.
The 72-year-old victim didn’t want to use her name, but she said the man wearing the gray hoodie is the one who came through a window at her home and took her television Thursday afternoon.
“I was sleeping. My husband had just left for work. I heard a lot of noise up front and thought he had forgotten something and came back,” the victim said. She went to the front and saw the suspect and retreated back to the bedroom and called police.
She said she did not know the suspects. Police found her stolen merchandise in the gray Nissan SUV they were driving in the pursuit.
This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 2:28 PM.
