Eagan Police: Drug Deal Setup Sparked Robbery, Assault

A man who said he was robbed by two Eagan men this week apparently tried to buy drugs from the two suspects when he got home late Monday night and smelled smoke coming from their car, according to court documents filed Friday.

Joey James Brown, 18, and Paul Earnest McWilliams Jr., 19, were formally charged Friday with first-degree aggravated robbery, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $35,000 fine, and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, which has a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a $14,000 fine.     

The incident early Wednesday morning was apparently a setup that went sour, Brown allegedly admitted to police after his arrest.

According to the criminal complaints, the victim told police that he pulled into the parking lot of a home on Ballantrae Road just after 2 a.m. Wednesday, and smelled smoke coming from a nearby car.

The victim approached the two people in the car, Brown and McWilliams, and asked if they had any marijuana to sell, he told police. The man sitting in the driver’s seat, later identified as McWilliams, gave the victim his phone number, and they set up a drug deal via text message, according to the complaint.

The victim later got a text message from McWilliams, and he went back outside to the parking lot to meet them. As he talked to the two men, a third man, described as a black male with tattoos, came up behind the victim, put a gun to his head and told him to hand over all his money, according to the complaint.

The victim said he had hidden the money in his sock, and the unidentified man became angry when he couldn’t find anything in the victim’s pockets. The third man punched the victim in the back of the head, pistol-whipped him in the face and punched him in the jaw before the victim was able to escape, but the armed man jumped on top of him and pistol-whipped him again, the complaint says.

The victim told police that he “gave up” and walked back to the car, where Brown, McWilliams and the unidentified third man told him to get in the car. They drove to a bank, and the armed man and McWilliams took the victim’s debit card and withdrew $300 from the ATM, according to the complaint.

The three men then dropped off the victim at his apartment, and he called two friends to come and get him. As the man’s friends approached the apartment, they spotted something on the road that turned out to be a handgun. One of the men picked it up with his shirt and put it on the seat of his car, then turned it over later to police.

Police identified McWilliams as the owner of the phone number that the victim was given, and the victim picked McWilliams out of a photo lineup and shortly afterward arrested both McWilliams and Brown.

McWilliams told police that he was also a victim in the incident and that he too had been robbed, but he wouldn’t provide a description of the robber or his weapon or any details of the robbery, according to the complaint.

Brown allegedly told police that the incident was a setup in which he and McWilliams called the third man and told him to come to the apartment building and pretend to rob both defendants and the victim, the complaint says. Brown said the third man had a BB gun that looked real, and that it got lost when he pistol-whipped and scuffled with the victim.

Brown admitted “that the idea was for the victim to think all three of them were getting robbed, but he felt things got out of hand with how [the unidentified man] treated the victim,” according to the complaint.

Brown and McWilliams made initial appearances on the charges Friday. McWilliams remained in the Dakota County Jail Friday afternoon on a $60,000 bond; Brown was released on bond following his court appearance.

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