Man Who Helped Kidnap Check-Cashing Employee Receives Sentence

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — A Baltimore man has been sentenced to prison in connection to the armed carjacking and kidnapping of an employee at a check-cashing business.

In June 2024 following a three-week trial, a federal jury convicted Donte Davon Stanley, 35, and co-conspirator Dennis Allen Hairston, 35, of Catonsville, in connection to the carjackings. The jury found Stanley guilty of kidnapping and robbery conspiracies, as well as kidnapping and carjacking.

Evidence at trial established that Stanley, Hairston and others planned and organized the kidnapping of an employee with the goal of robbing the check-cashing businesses where the victim worked. The co-conspirators planned and organized the carjacking of the victim’s vehicle.

According to the evidence, from May 5-6, 2021, the co-conspirators followed the victim from the check-cashing business where she worked. The co-conspirators then posed as law enforcement officers and used a police-style light bar to pull the victim over. Stanley and Hairston, who were wearing police vests and badges, used guns to forcefully remove the victim from her vehicle.

They then handcuffed the victim’s hands behind her back, zip-tied her feet, blindfolded her by placing a mask and duct tape around her face, and forcibly placed her into the rear of a vehicle. While Stanley drove, Hairston hit, sexually assaulted and repeatedly burned the victim with a blowtorch to obtain information from her to access the check-cashing business where she worked with the intent to steal all the cash from the business.

U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson sentenced Stanley to 25 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for his role in the carjacking. Hurson described the offense as “grotesque, depraved, reprehensible conduct.”

Hurson sentenced Hairston to 40 years in federal prison back in December 2025 in connection with this armed robbery and a second abduction that happened May 15-16, 2021, in Harford County.

As to the second victim, trial evidence established that, on May 15 to 16, 2021, Hairston and others approached that victim while he was in his vehicle in Edgewood. Trial evidence proved that the Hairston again used a police-style light bar to pull over the second victim. Wearing police vests and badges, the evidence revealed that Hairston kidnapped the second victim and forcibly placed him into the rear of a vehicle operated by the conspirators. After placing a mask over his face and duct-taping his face and stealing his vehicle, the second victim was burned with a blow torch in an effort to obtain cash and other items from him, too.