Sometimes “old friends” aren’t what they are cracked up to be and Safaree learned that the hard way.
The mastermind behind the plot to rob Safaree was Shawn Harewood, who was a friend of Safaree.
Complex reports that Harewood reportedly recruited Ashman and another accomplice, Carl Harry, to carry out the robbery because he knew that the entertainer would recognize him if he did it himself.
According to NJ.com, Tacuma Ashman scanned the entertainer’s social media page in order to discover which pieces of jewelry he wears most frequently.
From there, Ashman and his accomplice robbed Safaree of $180,000 worth of jewelry at gunpoint from his Fort Lee, NJ home.
Following the robbery, the men went on a high-speed car chase with police across the George Washington Bridge and into NYC.
Safaree opened up about the robbery while talking to Angie Martinez in 2018.
“I just got robbed at gunpoint,” he said. “A couple of hours ago, I just got robbed.
Two dudes with guns just ran up on me, my face down on the floor with a gun to my head. They just took everything.”
Ashman was also convicted on charges of resisting arrest and weapons possession.
Ashman and the others were accused of placing a GPS tracking device under Safaree’s car in an effort to know his location.
In April 2018, Harry and Ashman trailed Safaree as he entered his luxury apartment complex, snatched the jewelry from him, and then made off in their escape car, a black Cadillac Escalade. Once police were on their tail, they eventually ended up crashing into a divider on the highway and were later apprehended.
Harry previously agreed to a plea deal in the case and was sentenced to 364 days and five years of probation.
The three men who allegedly robbed #SafareeSamuels at gunpoint in plain view of surveillance cameras have just been indicted.
Shawn Harewood, Tacuma Ashman & Carl Harry were all slapped with a 7-count indictment.
Any Thoughts??☕#Lovelyti2002 pic.twitter.com/DPUtEbL1Yx
— lovelyti (@lovelyti) February 27, 2019
Shawn Harewood apologized to “all involved” before he was sentenced, and stated that the robbery was a part of a series of “bad decisions” that he’s “not proud of.”
“These moments do not define me, and they’re not reflective of me,” he told the courtroom earlier this week.
Despite Harewood’s lawyer’s argument that his years in prison would cause his family hardship, the prosecution was adamant that he should’ve thought about that before committing his crime.
Judge Gary Wilcox sentenced Harewood to 18 years in prison for his role in stealing $180K worth of jewelry from Safaree, with the years running consecutively instead of concurrently, as AllHipHop notes.
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