A 19-year-old St. Paul man was sentenced Monday to nearly 3½ years in prison for robbing a woman of her dog while they were walking last spring in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood.

Lonnie Ray Jenkins pleaded guilty Sept. 13 to first-degree aggravated robbery for stealing 7-year-old Clementine, a French bulldog-Boston terrier mix, on April 24.

Ramsey County Assistant Chief Judge Kelly Olmstead ordered the 41-month prison term Monday, saying the robbery has “weighed heavily on my heart” since she signed the search warrants.

“There’s something uniquely painful about what you did here in stealing someone’s pet dog from them,” she told Jenkins. “And I felt that way even before hearing the unique bond that this person has with their dog.”

Owner Greta Deane posted flyers and spoke with the Pioneer Press in April in hopes of recovering her pet. She worried what would happen to Clementine because her dog looks healthy but needs daily prescription medication.

One of those flyers helped lead to the dog’s recovery two days after the robbery. A man called Deane to say someone in the 500 block of Selby Avenue tried to sell him an anxious, sickly dog for $700 and that he later spotted the same dog on a flyer.

Police learned Jenkins lived at that Selby Avenue address, that his cellphone was nearby at the time of the robbery and that his mother’s SUV matched the description of the car used in the crime.

Officers went to the address with a search warrant, found Clementine on a living room couch and reunited her with Deane.

Attacked from behind

Deane, in a victim impact statement read in court Monday by Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Kathryn Long, recounted the attack, saying Jenkins and an unidentified accomplice followed her for several blocks near her home around 4 p.m. April 24 and struck up a conversation, “pretending to be animal lovers.”

“When my back was turned while trying to get my keys out of my belt bag, they attacked me from behind, dragging us down the steps and walkway,” she said. “It happened quickly, and I tried my best to keep my dog under my own protection.”

“I begged and pleaded in desperation for them not to take her,” she said.

Surveillance video showed two masked males walking in the neighborhood. One said in a phone call, “Darius, hurry up,” and someone in a maroon SUV soon picked them up.

French bulldogs have become a target for thieves around the country because of their popularity and value.

Theft record

Ramsey County court records show Jenkins was adjudicated delinquent — the juvenile version of being found guilty — in two theft-related felony cases in 2022, and he has two open cases in Hennepin County District Court.

At the time of the dog theft, Jenkins was wanted in connection with two aggravated robberies that took place six weeks prior in south Minneapolis. A second open case filed in May charges him with stealing a wallet from a car in south Minneapolis on the same day and then using the victim’s credit card at a Lake Street restaurant.

Lonnie Ray Jenkins (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Jenkins’ attorney, Carole Finneran, told Judge Olmstead her client has expressed “significant amounts of remorse” and that he stated in a presentence investigation that he “was very wrong.”

“He did not plan this crime,” Finneran said. “The opportunity presented itself and he behaved in an incredibly wrong way.”

‘Cruel, distressing’ crime

Finneran asked Olmstead to consider his age and that he has no prior adult convictions. She said he was diagnosed with Level 2 autism last year and requires substantial support.

Jenkins apologized to the court and Deane on Monday, adding: “I don’t know how I can really explain why I did such a petty thing.” He asked the judge for the “opportunity to improve my behavior.”

Olmstead denied his request for a downward disposition departure, saying she’d be “hard-pressed to say that you’re particularly amenable to probation.”

“The forceful stealing of a pet from an owner’s hands is both more cruel and the effects of it are significantly more distressing than the typical sort of theft that we see taking someone’s wallet or their phone,” the judge said. “This was a pet dog, a sentient being in its own right, bonded to its owner.”

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