Texts may draw Dunbar back in
Quinton Dunbar’s clean getaway is about to get messy.
Text messages released Tuesday by Florida police put the Seahawks corner, spared criminal charges last month, back in the middle of an alleged armed robbery in the Sunshine State with recently released Giants cornerback DeAndre Baker.
Though Broward (Fla.) State Attorney’s Office said in August there was “insufficient evidence” to charge Dunbar, the text messages sent by witness Dominic Johnson echo what victims told police after the May 13 holdup: Dunbar worked in tandem with Baker, aka “Dre.”
“Bra how about Dre them just robbed the dice game. Dunbar told them n——-s do that,” Johnson allegedly wrote in a group text on May 14 at 1 a.m., about two hours after the alleged armed robbery occurred in Miramar.
The texts are new evidence, obtained and documented on
Aug. 28 through a search warrant for the iCloud account associated with Johnson’s cellphone, police documents say.
Johnson, asked if Dunbar was involved, implicated both players: “Dre and Dunbar was directing it.”
Johnson, known as “Coach,” is the witness who told police at the scene that Baker pulled a gun. He told authorities that he’s known Baker and Dunbar since they were children.
Johnson also allegedly oversaw a payoff of Baker’s and Dunbar’s four alleged victims on May 15 in exchange for signing an affidavit recanting their statements about the Seahawks player’s involvement. This allegedly occurred at the Miami office of Dunbar’s former attorney Michael Grieco. Johnson also signed an affidavit recanting his original testimony, according to Grieco.
Investigators concluded Dunbar “was not armed with any weapon” on the night of the alleged robbery, according to Miramar police documents made public in Baker’s open case. But victims described the sixth-year corner as directly involved in the robbery.
Dunbar was “directing them to take people (’s) stuff … He was telling them, to get that watch … as they were taking people(’s) stuff,” said one victim. Another, asked by a detective who was behind the alleged robbery, replied, “Both of those ballplayers.”
One of the text recipients wrote Johnson that he assumed Dunbar and Baker would let their friends do the robbing and pull the weapons — or “hammers.”
“Dre had up the hammers I don’t owe nobody nothing Dre saying he gone give they bread back,” Johnson replied.
Bread is slang for money. The exchange precedes a May 15 Instagram message from Baker to Johnson on the day of the alleged payoff: “Yo I’m in the city now getting cash how much to bring ?? I’m tryna get there too u ASAP.”
Police documents said CCTV video showed Dunbar driving a Lamborghini SUV away from the gated Miramar community where the alleged robbery occurred. “It appeared he was yelling, ‘I dropped my phone, I dropped my phone,’” the documents said.
The documents said Baker left his X-Box behind, and one of the involved parties left a cellphone behind. But the cellphone was not recovered, and there is victim testimony that Johnson hid the phone from police at the scene.
A victim recalled Johnson speaking on the phone with an angry Dunbar after the alleged payoff at Grieco’s office.
“I don’t even want to talk you, man,” the victim quotes Dunbar as saying. “I had to pay $80,000 for this s*** and I didn’t do nothing.”
All four victims provided sworn statements that they were paid a total of $60,000 at Grieco’s office to recant their initial statements against Dunbar.
Johnson allegedly has confirmed this payoff in his own Instagram messages and now his own text messages, too. Grieco is even listed as a potential witness by Florida prosecutors in the open case against Baker.
And there’s more: A May 16 voice recording captured Johnson allegedly admitting that the robbery had occurred, that Baker was involved, and that Johnson had convinced the victims to sign the papers, according to documents.
In a group text with 12 recipients, Johnson also received a screenshot from “Kenny Phillips 2021,” police records show. The screenshot is from a news article discussing the five victims and one witness that exonerated Dunbar. Johnson allegedly responded to that message: “I did that for them had them same n——-s change they story.”
The police records said Kenny Phillips 2021 then asked Johnson, “So Dre good 2?” And Johnson allegedly responded: “Yes just left his office.”
Surprisingly, it does not appear any Florida state attorney’s office is prosecuting Johnson despite apparent ample evidence of his role in the alleged payoff. The non-prosecution appears to boil down to a jurisdictional spat.
The Broward State Attorney’s office told the Daily News last month no charges were filed charges against Johnson because his “conduct … is alleged to have happened in Miami-Dade County, not in Broward County.” The alleged armed robbery, for which only Baker is being charged, happened in Broward and alleged pay-off occurred in Miami-Dade.