A 23-year-old St. Paul man serving time in a federal prison on a gun charge was sentenced this week in Ramsey County District Court for his role in a robbery and non-fatal shooting of a man in the city’s North End neighborhood last year.

Kyrees Darius Johnson (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Kyrees Darius Johnson pleaded guilty to an added count of second-degree assault on Tuesday and was given a nearly four-year prison term the same day. Two counts each of first-degree aggravated robbery and first-degree carjacking were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

The sentence will run concurrent with a nearly eight-year term he was given in U.S. District Court in July for his role in a crime ring that sold illegal machine gun conversion devices — known as switches — and privately made guns through Snapchat. Johnson and two others all pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of machine guns.

According to the Ramsey County criminal complaint, officers were dispatched to Atwater Street near Farrington Street just after 3:30 a.m. Aug. 22, 2023, with callers reporting hearing 30 to 50 gunshots. They found a 22-year-old with a gunshot wound to his side. He told police he’d shot someone, and his gun was in his pocket. Paramedics took him to the hospital.

He told police a woman had contacted him, asking if he wanted to “hook up” and sent him an address off Rice Street. He believed their plan was to have sex in his car.

After he picked her up, she told him to make a series of turns. He saw a vehicle approaching from behind at a high rate of speed and it suddenly rear ended him. He thought about driving off “because the incident seemed weird as (the woman) had directed him to a ‘sketchy’ street, but he stayed put because he didn’t want to be part of a hit and run,” the complaint says.

The woman immediately got out of his vehicle, saying she was going to check for damage. He said he saw two men approaching his car and they were carrying handguns with extended magazines. He grabbed his gun and put it in his shorts.

One of the men stuck a handgun in his abdomen and said, “Run your pockets.” When he turned around to walk away with his hands in the air, the robber put his gun in his lower back and told him again, “Run your pockets.”

He said he turned around and fired seven or eight times at the robber, and the robber fired back; he thought the robber’s gun sounded fully automatic.

The robber, who was wounded, yelled, “Shoot him!,” and the second man then shot the victim in the side, the complaint says.

Despite his injuries, the man ran two blocks and, when he thought the shooters had left, emerged from a hiding spot and knocked on multiple doors asking for help.

He got no answer and made his way back to where the shooting occurred. He saw his car had been stolen and the robbers were gone. A squad arrived and he ran to it for help.

The victim said he thought the woman he picked up knew about the robbery, and her boyfriend’s name is Kyrees Darius Johnson.

The woman had driven Johnson to the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. Officers saw her at the hospital with Johnson’s family, but she left before police could talk to her.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office filed a case against the woman, a 21-year-old from Minneapolis, five days after Johnson was charged. She faced the same four charges as him, but the prosecution dismissed her case on Tuesday.

“After further investigation and review of the evidence presented to us, it became clear that we could no longer support a felony level charge against (the defendant) in this matter,” Dennis Gerhardstein, the county attorney’s office spokesman, said Friday. “In this situation, it would have been wrong for us to pursue a conviction.”

A case against the second alleged robber has not been presented to the attorney’s office for charging consideration, Gerhardstein said.

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