Virginia man’s birthday present is prison

Dante Salley sentenced on his birthday to 8 to 16 years in prison

NORRISTOWN >> On his 36th birthday, a Virginia man learned he will join his coconspirator in prison on charges he participated in a holdup at a Cheltenham pharmacy.

Dante Salley, of Virginia Beach, Va., was sentenced on Sept. 19 in Montgomery County Court to 8 to 16 years in a state correctional facility on charges of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, theft by unlawful taking and criminal use of a communication facility in connection with the October 2019 robbery at the CVS Pharmacy at 45 Cheltenham Ave.

The sentence was imposed by Judge Thomas P. Rogers who presided over a June trial at which a jury convicted Salley and his co-conspirator, Torrey Lee Thompson, 52, of the 5600 block of Appletree Street, Philadelphia, of identical charges.

Thompson previously was sentenced to 12½ to 25 years in prison.

Assistant District Attorney Scott Frank Frame and co-prosecutor Douglas Lavenberg handled the case.

“He’s a proven violent offender and he essentially needs to be locked up for the safety of the community,” Frame said, referring to Salley as he argued for a lengthy prison term.

Salley was represented by defense lawyer Eric Donato, who argued Salley is remorseful for his conduct.

Citing the trauma suffered by the victims during the robbery, Frame sought significant prison terms against both men. Frame said the two victims, who were working as cashiers at the CVS, were affected to the extent “that they will never be able to work a job again without being in fear of serious bodily injury or death.”

At trial, Donato and defense lawyer John I. McMahon Jr., who represented Thompson, argued there was insufficient evidence to link the men to the robbery.

The investigation began about 8:53 p.m. Oct. 25, 2019, when Cheltenham police responded to the pharmacy for a report of an armed robbery. A female clerk told detectives two suspects entered the store shortly before closing time and one man, Thompson, approached her and “motioned like he had a gun” and ordered the clerk and a coworker to go to the office area, according to a criminal complaint.

The clerk was forced to open a safe and Salley “removed what appeared to be a light color cloth bag or pillow case from his pocket” and placed money from the safe into the bag, according to the arrest affidavit.

After emptying the safe of about $3,304, the two robbers fled from the store on foot, detectives alleged. Unbeknownst to the robbers, a GPS tracking device was hidden with the money and was activated immediately, according to court documents.

The final address relayed by the tracker was in

the 5600 block of Appletree Street in West Philadelphia, the location of Thompson’s residence, according to the arrest affidavit. Investigators discovered a Mercury Mountaineer vehicle parked on the street and in which they observed clothing items “that were consistent with the items seen and worn by the suspects during the CVS robbery,” detectives wrote in the criminal complaint.

The Mercury vehicle also matched the description of a vehicle depicted in video surveillance footage obtained from the area near the pharmacy around the time of the robbery, prosecutors said.

Authorities said two fingerprints lifted from the driver side rear passenger door of the Mercury Mountaineer were linked to Salley and one other latent fingerprint was linked to Thompson.

Detectives also used cellphone tower data to link mobile phones belonging to Thompson and Salley to being in the area of the CVS at the time of the robbery, according to the criminal complaint. Thompson and Salley were communicating with each other on the phones shortly before the robbery, detectives alleged.

The robbery was investigated by Cheltenham Detective Matthew Gonglik.