Alleged Armed Robbery Leaves Man Injured at Dakota Joe’s on Old Dixie Highway

Employees at Dakota Joe’s, a business at 2245 South Old Dixie Highway, were allegedly the targets of a violent armed robbery late Sunday night. One of the employees was hospitalized. Detectives are seeking the public’s help to locate suspects.

According to a Flagler County Sheriff’s report, two employees were leaving the business–dubbed a senior amusement center, with slot machines inside–when a man described as black, about 5’8”, 180 pounds, wearing a gray jacket hoodie that covered the majority of his face, came around from beside the building, pointed a “silver gun” at the two employees–a man and a woman–and ordered them to turn over their money.

They told him they didn’t have any. The man shoved the two employees toward the front door of the business and told them something blanked out of the incident report (detectives are withholding some information as the investigation proceeds, including the alleged victims’ names), then ordered them to open the door to the business.

Once inside, the assailant ordered one of the employees to grab keys that supposedly led to cash in slot machines. Once the machine or machines were opened, the suspect began taking money. But one of the employees, a 50-year-old man, then began resisting the suspect, according to the incident report. The employee claims the suspect then struck him over the head with the gun several times. “This money isn’t worth dying over,” the suspect told the employee.

By then the suspect had two bags of money, which he grabbed and walked out the door. The second employee, a 47-year-old woman, said that as her boss was being struck over the head, she “rushed to grab her cell phone so that she could contact law enforcement,” the incident report states, “then quickly ran to the front door to lock it when she observed the suspect get into the passenger side” of a sedan. The vehicle possibly was a black Nissan Altima.

The woman said she observed a few letters and numbers of the suspect vehicle’s tag, noted chrome trim on the bottom and tinted windows.

Her boss “suffered a large laceration to his head that he stated was from the suspect striking him with the gun,” the incident report states. He was taken to Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach.

Surveillance footage was reviewed from the Mobil BP gas station and from Dakota Joe’s. The incident report does not reveal the video content, though the sheriff’s office released stills from video footage, one of them showing the man in the hoodie confronting one of the employees outside, two others showing the suspect vehicle (see above).

Dakota Joe’s got its business license from the Flagler County Tax Collector in June 2017, shortly after registering with the Florida Division of Corporations, with Pranav Shah as the registered agent. But on Oct. 27 that same year, the business filed a voluntary dissolution with the Division of Corporations. The property on South Old Dixie Highway is listed as a convenience store and gas station under the ownership of the Shri Aadinath Corporation, registered to the same Pranav Shah, according to the Flagler County Property Appraiser.

Dakota Joe’s had previously been a “cyber center” in Beverly Hills, Fla. Almost all cyber-entertainment centers featuring slot machines were closed several years ago after the state passed severe restrictions on what were then known as internet cafes.

“As far as they’ve found out during their investigation so far, the company is legitimately opened,” a sheriff’s spokesperson said. The sheriff’s office had examined it around the time when it opened. “It was determined to be a legal business.”

Anyone with information on in this case is asked to contact the FCSO at 386-313-4911 and mention case number 2018-101675. You may also email [email protected] or call Crime Stoppers of Northeast Florida at 1-888-277-TIPS (8477). You could be eligible for a reward up to $5,000.00.