At 25, Henry Lee Devon Moore is a notorious and unabashed career criminal.
He's been arrested and charged with dozens of crimes big and small across Minnesota, and has spent time in countless jails and three prisons. Before he allegedly severely beat and tased a check-cashing employee in Minneapolis last month, at least three counties had issued arrest warrants or scheduled sentencing hearings for him for recent drug and robbery offenses.
Moore, of Columbia Heights, now sits in the Hennepin County jail facing five fresh felony charges and the reality of a prison term that's likely to be lengthy. On Thursday, prosecutors argued for a $300,000 bail, far higher than the $15,000 bail imposed by a Ramsey County judge when Moore was charged with burglarizing two convenience stores in August.
His latest alleged crime appears to be his most violent. Although he has previously been arrested in aggravated robbery, assault and weapons offenses, most of his earlier bookings and charges consist of driver's license violations, failing to appear in court, giving false information to police officers, trespassing and loitering.
"He's been a very, very prolific criminal," said John Elder, spokesman for the Minneapolis Police Department. "Talking to detectives, they said this guy has just been on fire these last few months and was a true crime spree himself."
On Oct. 21, Moore and another man targeted an Unbank store in north Minneapolis, the charges against him say. The business, which has 16 locations in the metro area, offers check cashing and other financial services.
As a 48-year-old employee was locking up the business around 7:30 p.m., Moore and the other man shot her with a stun gun, took her car keys and forced her into the back seat of her car, the criminal complaint said. They repeatedly hit her and shot her with the stun gun, demanding the combination to the safe and vault inside the business.
The men then hit her with a hammer and took her driver's license from her wallet, threatening to rob her family if she failed to cooperate, the complaint said. With the injured woman now their hostage, they drove away.
One of the men continued to hit her with his fists and the hammer, but she refused to give the combination because she believed she would be killed afterward, she said later. She finally relented and gave them the information because she was suffering from physical and emotional exhaustion, the complaint said.
They brought her back to Unbank and forced her to open the vault, but she was unable to do so. Alerted by an alarm, police arrived to find the woman screaming inside the building. Moore and the other man ran out the back door, and officers tried to track them with police dogs.
Moore was identified by two fingerprints lifted from the victim's car. A known associate led police to a residence in Minneapolis where Moore was arrested Nov. 1.
The Unbank employee, who didn't return a call for comment Thursday, suffered significant injuries to her face, eyes, neck, chest and legs.
Moore listed an office phone number for his residence number on a police report. A woman who answered at that number said that she attended his court hearing Thursday but that she was too upset to stay for the entire time and is stressed about the upcoming birth of their baby.
A 'win for public safety'
In addition to the Unbank case, Moore has many other legal battles underway. Stearns County has issued four warrants for drug-related charges, and he faces a bench warrant for a Minneapolis robbery.
In September, he pleaded guilty to the two burglaries in Ramsey County, for which he is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 19. In the first incident, he and another man broke into Lee's Superette in Maplewood on Aug. 24 and stole a safe and several other machines. Three days later, the pair attempted to break into the Walk-In Grocery in St. Paul, but police arrived and arrested them.
Bail for both third-degree burglary cases was set at $15,000.
While bail is determined by a judge primarily to guarantee a defendant's appearance at the next court date, the Ramsey County attorney's office took his criminal history into account when it asked for double ($20,000) the typical amount warranted for a third-degree burglary charge, said office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein.
With Moore's potential crime pattern violently escalating, "the mere fact we have him in custody is a real win for public safety," Elder said.
David Chanen • 612-673-4465
