After spending 2 years in jail, Macon man pleads guilty to $5 robbery of man on bike
Dashaun J. Strong was 18 in May of 2019 when he knocked a man off a bicycle and took $5 from him.
On Tuesday — two years to the day he was booked into the Bibb County jail on a robbery-by-force charge — Strong, who turned 21 last month, pleaded guilty.
Though he could have faced up to 20 years in prison, Strong was sentenced to time served in the county lockup plus eight years on probation as a first offender. Strong was also ordered to perform 120 hours of community service.
As Strong stood before Superior Court Judge Howard Z. Simms, the judge asked Strong about the seemingly foolish nature of his crime: strong-arming a bicyclist for a few measly bucks.
“Did that,” Simms asked, “not just ring stupid in your head?”
“Yes it did, sir,” came the reply.
“It makes me sad,” the judge said.
Then he told Strong this was his chance to straighten up his life. A first-offender sentence affords Strong the opportunity to, upon successful completion of his probation, have the felony conviction scrubbed from his record.
“Otherwise,” Simms added, “you’ll just wind up being another number. ... You need to stay out of trouble and you need to do something with yourself. You seem like a relatively bright young man, other than the markedly stupid act of robbing somebody on a bicycle of $5.”