Baltimore-area men impersonated cops, tortured carjacking victims

Lee Sanderlin

The Baltimore Banner

March 5, 2024

In May 2021, a group of men clad in tactical vests with “police” written on them drove to Edgewood in Harford County in search of another man.

Around midnight, the group, driving a car equipped with police lights, used those lights to pull over that man under the guise of arresting him for an outstanding warrant, according to court records. Stepping out of the car with firearms, the group grabbed the man, duct taped his eyes and mouth, bound his feet and put him in the back of their car.

For five hours they drove him around, demanding $10,000 and threatening to kill his parents if he wouldn’t cooperate, according to court records. When the man wouldn’t answer their questions, a member of the group used a blowtorch to burn his chest, leaving him permanently scarred. Eventually the group took his keys, wallet, phone and a necklace before dropping him in Baltimore in the predawn hours of May 16.

On Friday, one of the group members pleaded guilty in federal court, admitting to his role in that carjacking and torture and that of a woman two months later.

Baltimore County resident Davonne Dorsey, 30, was part of a four-man crew that impersonated police officers to carjack and kidnap people throughout Baltimore, Baltimore County and Harford County, according to federal court records. Originally indicted on multiple kidnapping, robbery, carjacking and firearm charges, Dorsey pleaded guilty Friday to a charge of using a gun in the commission of a violent crime and carjacking.

Prosecutors recommended a 15-year prison term for Dorsey. A judge is set to sentence him in June.

Dorsey is the second person to plead guilty in connection to these carjackings. Franklin Smith, of Baltimore, pleaded guilty in July 2023 for his role in the same Harford County carjacking and for providing the car used to abduct a woman in Baltimore as she left work two weeks earlier. Smith is awaiting sentencing.

Two other men, Donte Stanley and Dennis Hairston, are awaiting trial. All four were indicted federally in April 2022.

Smith, according to court records, provided the car the group used on May 5, 2021, to abduct and torture a woman much in the same manner as the man from Harford County. The group is accused of using a blowtorch to burn their victim in that carjacking.

Dorsey’s plea agreement did not mention involvement with that woman’s carjacking, but did include a second woman who was kidnapped in August 2021 after leaving from her job at a check cashing business in Cockeysville.

The men, again impersonating police, grabbed the woman and put her in the back of their car, where they handcuffed her with zip ties and put duct tape over her eyes, according to court records. The woman saw a blowtorch but wasn’t burned — one of the men allegedly told her, “We don’t burn sisters.”

They tried to get the combinations to the safes at that business but were unsuccessful. After six hours they dropped her in Edmondson Village around 1 a.m., according to court records.