7 suspects from Chicago charged in luxury car heist near Milwaukee last year
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Seven suspects from Chicago are now charged in a luxury car heist that happened in Wisconsin nearly a year ago.
Some of the men now charged were already convicted in a deadly carjacking in Milwaukee.
Video from Waukesha, Wisconsin police shows four of the suspects in action in the showroom of a Jaguar and Land Rover dealership on Feb. 18, 2024. In another shot, a vehicle rammed through the dealership's garage door in reverse.
Police said this was the work of a Chicago luxury car theft ring. A total of nine vehicles were taken.
"Basically, they just took the key fobs seeing what headlights would pop up," Waukesha police Capt. Dan Baumann said last year.
Someone tipped off police after seeing the men in masks pull all nine luxury cars into the same gas station.
Police did arrest one man, Calvin Valentine, after they threw out spike strips during a high-speed chase.
But the other suspects got away. Five other cars, however, were eventually found—one in Deerfield and four in Chicago.
"This just wasn't a group of kids that just decided to stay up late one night playing video games and say, 'Hey, let's go see if the nine of us can travel two hours away to commit crimes,'" Baumann said last year.
But the police say some of their suspects—Tramaine T. Walton, 18; Correnthis C. Neal, 19; and Lamont Stanton, 20—went on to commit more serious crimes. They were convicted of killing a man in a carjacking outside a Milwaukee Taco Bell three months later.
Stanley Smith Jr., 41, was shot and killed around 6:20 p.m. Sunday, May 5, 2024, outside the Taco Bell at 5630 W. North Ave. in Milwaukee's Uptown neighborhood.
According to a criminal complaint as reported by CBS 58 Milwaukee, Smith was at Scene 1 Restaurant & Lounge, located on Milwaukee's North Avenue a block from the scene of the shooting. An announcement was made at the restaurant warning patrons that people were breaking into cars in the parking lot, CBS 58 reported.
Prosecutors said Smith intervened to try to prevent his vehicle from being stolen, and was seen fighting with masked men near his black sport-utility vehicle when he was shot and killed, CBS 58 reported. He was shot four times—including twice in the head—and died a few days later.
Police are still looking for four suspects in the Waukesha auto heist—Dequarion Williams, Lamar Walker, Levar Ward, and Lamont Jackson.
Police said they connected all the suspects because they were in a group call together at the time of the burglary.
There is one more person, a driver, who has not been identified.
