Charges against the last of three men accused of taking part in a 2009 Duluth home invasion robbery -- in which a victim was hit in the head with a hammer and a suspect fired a gunshot into a wall -- were dismissed Tuesday.
Princeton Lee Witherspoon, 21, was charged in 2009 with two counts of first-degree burglary and three counts of first-degree aggravated robbery -- all felonies -- after the man who was hit with a hammer identified him and two others from a police photo lineup.
Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Leslie Beiers, who heads her office's criminal division, said the case against Witherspoon was dropped in the interest of justice. She said her understanding was that Witherspoon produced alibi information, and both of his co-defendants indicated that he was not at the crime scene.
In an unrelated matter, Witherspoon was sentenced Wednesday in St. Louis County District Court to eight months at the Northeast Regional Corrections Center after he pleaded guilty to two counts of misdemeanor theft and was found to have violated probation on a 2008 conviction on a felony count of receiving stolen property.
According to the criminal complaint in the April 30, 2009, robbery case, a resident of a home on the 1100 block of East Seventh Street said one suspect hit him in the head with a hammer and stayed with him while two others ransacked his house and stole his property. During that time, suspects fired the shot into the wall. After the suspects left, the victim said he heard a second shot and the men yelling at neighbors to "get down."
ADVERTISEMENT
When Duluth police arrived, another man and a woman told them that they had just come home when the three suspects approached them. One of them held a gun near the man's head and fired a shot. The suspects took the man's wallet and his wife's purse.
One of the defendants, Tommy David Holloway, 23, was convicted on three of the counts in June. He was sentenced to one year in the Northeast Regional Corrections Center and placed on eight years of supervised probation. He could be sentenced to 58 months in prison if he violates probation.
Dinero Rashaud Miller, 21, was found guilty on two counts in August. He was sentenced Tuesday to 68 months in prison. He was given credit for the 212 days he was in jail.
