| MEMPHIS, TN – At the request of the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, a Juvenile Court referee this week transferred two teenagers accused of committing a violent Valentine’s Day crime spree to Criminal Court to be tried as adults.
The defendants, Tommy Brown, 16, and Deandre Clark, 17, both students at East High School are charged with aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated robbery, and attempted aggravated robbery for a crime spree on February 14 throughout Germantown and Memphis.
In the first incident, a victim was attacked and beaten in the parking lot of a Germantown shopping center at 7730 Poplar Avenue. A second victim, a teacher at Germantown High School, was robbed later that morning at gunpoint while walking out of the school and to her vehicle. An adult co-defendant, Won Colby Pearce, 18, also a student at East High School, faces the same charges in connection these two incidents.
Later that afternoon, a third victim was robbed at gunpoint at the Oak Court Mall. Then, in a fourth incident, a 70-year-old woman who walks with a cane was knocked down and dragged by her purse strap in the parking lot of the Hickory Ridge Mall. An additional adult co-defendant, Preston Williams, 19, also a student at East High School, is charged along with Brown, Clark and Pearce in connection with these two incidents.
Brown was released on $50,000 bond; Clark is being held in the Shelby County Jail on $50,000 bond.
Aggravated robbery is a charge covered by the D.A.’s “No Deals” policy on violent crimes which applies to juveniles who are prosecuted as adults.
It is the policy of the District Attorney’s Office to request that juveniles who are 16 or 17 years old be transferred to Criminal Court if they are charged with committing a violent crime. The D.A.’s Office also carefully reviews cases in which a juvenile under 16 is charged with committing a violent crime to determine if a request to transfer the juvenile is appropriate.
Assistant District Attorney Terre Fratesi, the D.A.’s lead prosecutor in Juvenile Court, handled the transfer hearing. |