Belleville man sentenced for role in downtown St. Louis carjacking

A Belleville man was sentenced to more than eight years in a federal prison for his role in a downtown St. Louis carjacking.

Darrell Gilkey, 26, was one of two men who carjacked a 2019 Dodge Charger on Sept. 19, 2020. In January, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for East Missouri in St. Louis to one count of carjacking and one count of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

According to federal court records, a man and a woman were unloading items from the Charger on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis when a red Toyota drove up, the occupants pointed a gun at the victims and demanded the Charger’s keys.

Gilkey and his accomplice, identified by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as Rodriquez T. Harris, of East St. Louis, then ordered the victims to remove their shoes and lie on the ground before the Toyota and the Charger were driven away, the records state.

Video of the carjacking was captured by a security camera at a Washington Avenue nightclub. The victims later identified Gilkey as one of the carjackers.

In addition to 100 months in a federal prison, the term of which began Thursday, Gilkey was ordered to pay $31,251 in restitution for the Charger, which was totaled.

Gilkey has been in jail since 2020, when he was indicted on 21 felony charges in St. Louis Circuit Court. He is accused of the carjacking as well as a series of robberies of wallets, phones and other items from June 26, 2020 to Sept. 9, 2020.

He also had been charged in St. Clair County with a series of burglaries in 2016.

The case was investigated by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Boyce prosecuted the case.