Charges: Burglar hit about 80 Twin Cities coffee shops, restaurants, other retailers

He hit establishments in Edina, White Bear Lake, St. Paul and as far away as Mankato, according to a criminal complaint.

December 4, 2019 at 11:06PM
Deondre Cush Credit: Ramsey County jail
Deondre Cush (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

A 35-year-old man appeared in court Wednesday on allegations that he pulled off more than 80 burglaries across the Twin Cities, targeting small and mostly independent coffee shops, restaurants and other retailers.

Deondre R. Cush, of St. Paul, remains jailed and charged in Ramsey County District Court with burglary in connection with the late-night break-ins that spanned from August 2018 until last October.

Cush has been getting in trouble with the law throughout his adult life, collecting convictions for burglary, theft, drug possession and aiding an offender in the 2008 murder in St. Paul of 20-year-old Antonio Sims.

According to charges regarding the burglary spree:

Cush started with four burglaries in a little more than four hours on Aug. 15, 2018, under cover of darkness. He smashed the glass front door of Café Cravings in White Bear Lake with a brick and stole $150. He used the same tactic to break into the Coffee Bené on Cleveland Avenue S. in St. Paul, the Finnish Bistro on Como Avenue in St. Paul and the Hampden Park Co-Op on Raymond Avenue, also in St. Paul.

Later the same month, he added two more restaurants in St. Paul and one each in Richfield and Bloomington to his list of break-ins and theft.

He often used his cellphone to search for coffee shops and Mexican restaurants that were near him over his more than yearlong spree, but also broke into a Halloween Express costume shop in Richfield and made one of his larger hauls at Capitol Guitars on Selby Avenue in St. Paul, where he came away with more than $2,000 and nine guitars.

He added pizza shops, Dairy Queens, a grocery and neighborhood bars to his string of crimes, often using a rock to bust out a door window or a pry bar to force his way in. He even branched out geographically, hitting businesses in Mankato and St. Peter.

On April 11, police caught up with Cush after he burglarized his second of two businesses in St. Paul, stealing $565 from the Bay Street Bar and Grill hours before it opened. He fled police for a few moments in an SUV before his capture, read the complaint in that case.

Cush walked out of jail five days later after posting a noncash bond of $25,000, and within a month was at it again. He hit China Tiger restaurant and a Dairy Queen in New Brighton, and Arepa Bite in Mounds View in less than 90 minutes on May 10, followed by at least six additional burglaries until his current incarceration.

The most recent of break-ins attributed to Cush occurred on Oct. 26. The Ramsey County Sheriff's Office tracked him down on Monday in St. Paul and booked him into jail that afternoon. Authorities have yet to say how they were able to nab him, but much of their knowledge about his whereabouts throughout this spree came for tracking the movements of his cellphone.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

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Paul Walsh

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Paul Walsh is a general assignment reporter at the Star Tribune. He wants your news tips, especially in and near Minnesota.

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