Sending a message: Shoplifter in Jacksonville store owner's death learns her sentence

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2 days ago

The woman who skipped her first sentencing date in the shoplifting that led to a Jacksonville store owner being run over and killed has now learned her fate.
Tashina Renee Dobbins, 40, initially faced up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to felony petty theft and hoped for some leniency by not making the case go to trial. After getting released on her own recognizance and being a no-show for her next hearing, Judge Mark Borello sentenced her to the maximum 10 years in prison with the additional charge of failure of a defendant on bail to appear in court.
'I want to make it abundantly clear to you, Miss Dobbins, that I am not sentencing you based on whether or not I believe that you told the court the truth here today,' the judge said at the May 30 sentencing. 'However, in the interest of transparency, I will be frank with you and tell you I don't know how much of what you said here was the truth. It seems relatively clear that there were certainly aspects of your testimony today that were not true.'
He then hesitated for several seconds before issuing her sentence. She turned to her attorney and asked 'Consecutively?' and he responded '10 years.' She wept and blurted out to the judge, 'Wait, wait, consecutive?'
He advised she has 30 days to appeal the sentence. The defense was seeking six months in jail followed by a year probation.
Dobbins was the first arrest a couple of weeks after the Dec. 6 death of 64-year-old Ilson Miriam Kim, who was run over by the getaway driver while trying to stop a shoplifting at her Atlantic Boulevard Beauty Max store. Investigators had to track her down again after skipping her March 31 sentencing and was arrested on May 6 for the new count.
On April 10 a second person, 29-year-old David Frederick Pulliam Jr., was charged with misdemeanor petty theft from $100 to $750 and resisting while committing theft, according to jail and court records. He has remained in jail in lieu of $100,000 and pleaded not guilty. His next hearing is scheduled for June 17, according to court records.
For Pulliam, his arrest report indicates he was the one Kim chased out of the store with stolen merchandise after entering with Dobbins who didn't actually take anything. The Times-Union asked Dobbins' attorney why she was charged with the harsher felony but did not get a response.
It was learned during the sentencing that Pulliam and Dobbins were engaged.
Dobbins' first arrest report states a man and woman arrived at the Beauty Max store in the same vehicle parked in a handicapped spot and were walking around inside for 20 minutes. The man is seen on security video running out with $289 worth of merchandise, and the woman casually walks out after Kim runs after him. The 64-year-old was struck by the vehicle backing out of the parking spot as the driver took off without Dobbins.
Security video shows her holding up her arms as if to say, 'Where are you going?' according to the arrest report. 'The female suspect does not provide aid to the victim as she walks past her in the roadway.' She is later seen on a nearby Walmart's video being picked up by the suspect vehicle in the rear of the parking lot.
That led to her being identified and tracked down. 'Although the female suspect did not physically remove merchandise from the store without paying for it, she did in fact work in concert with others to commit the theft,' her report states.
Sheriff's Office Sgt. Steve Rudlaff said during the initial briefing to the media that there were three assailants, including one who was waiting in the getaway car.
Before the sentencing, Tashina Dobbins described growing up being raised by an alcoholic grandmother because her drug addict mother wasn't there nor her father. She said she also was abused as a young girl by another relative.
'You found a way to eat or you didn't eat,' she said.
Dobbins said the day of the shoplifting was her anniversary and she and her fiancé wanted to go out and celebrate. She wanted to go a hair store for wigs and extensions, so they and another man she only identified by a nickname went to the Beauty Max. She said it wasn't a plan to steal anything. But after seeing her fiancé loading items up, she started to realize he wasn't going to pay and tried to tell an employee.
She said she froze when she saw the woman get run over. She said she she told an employee she had nothing to do with it and gave the employee a tag number because and they had just stolen her car.
She said she was never running from law enforcement but didn't find out until later that the store owner died.
'If I could take it back, I would,' Dobbins said sobbing. 'I just keep imagining what if it was me. … I am not this person, but I accept responsibility, and I'm sorry.'
Borello asked her what exactly would she take back.
'I wouldn't have walked off … I shouldn't have left her,' she said.
Dobbins also said when she was arrested the first time, she gave investigators access to her phone account that they were able to get her fiancé's information and also the other man's phone number. She said she also provided tips to Crime Stoppers and that the detective knows this. She said she additionally called police when the driver was with her for several hours one day, but they never showed.
Assistant State Attorney Brittany Johnson countered with the lead detective in the case.
'Miss Dobbins provided a lot of information,' he testified. 'However, it all led to essentially nothing. It was essentially just wasting time, randomly searching for nothing.'
He also said he wasn't aware of any Crime Stoppers tip about the driver.
As for the day of her initial sentencing, she explained she was hospitalized in a traffic crash and had a miscarriage. Johnson asked if she provided her attorney any documentation of that two-day hospital stay, and she said no.
According to new charges filed against Dobbins on May 16 while she was incarcerated on her failure to appear charge, they stemmed from an offense on March 31, which was the same day she was originally supposed to be sentenced and the same day she told the judge she was hospitalized, court records show.
Nothing was specifically addressed about this case during her sentencing.
The charges are strong-arm robbery without a weapon, conspiring to commit retail theft with intent to sell stolen property - $750 or more, second offense, and act with others to distract in order to commit retail theft of $750 or more.
That arrest report states an employee at the 4750 Soutel Drive Family Dollar store said he was punched on the side of his head while standing in front of the door trying to prevent a group of shoplifters from leaving with nearly $1,000 of unpaid-for goods. As a physical altercation ensued, the group proceeded out of the store with the merchandise.
Dobbins was identified in the security video. Seven others are listed as co-defendants, including an 18-year-old whose bail was set at an unusually high $375,000. Another had the same last name as Dobbins and most had extensive arrest records.
Dobbins is scheduled to be arraigned in that case on June 9.
Three family members provided victim impact statements to the judge, including daughters Sylvia and Elisabeth Kim.
Sylvia Kim said the family is discouraged that the sentence isn't seeking justice for the taking of a life but just for felony petty theft.
'Theft as if that were the only crime worth acknowledging. How do we even begin to reconcile that?' Sylvia Kim said in person in court. 'Tashina Dobbins didn't just steal some wigs and hair products. She stole a future, she stole birthdays, graduations, weddings, morning coffees, phone calls, dreams and decades that Ilson was meant to live. She has stolen my future and the chance for me to pay back to my mom all the things she sacrificed and worked so hard in this country for to support my sister and me.
"Ilson's death wasn't an unfortunate side effect, it was a consequence of Tashina's choices — reckless and deliberate that left a human being dead,' she continued.
Kim also told the judge they have full video at the store that negates most everything of what Dobbins testified.
Youngest daughter Elisabeth Kim, who spoke via Zoom conferencing, provided her statement next. She talked about the good her mother had done, not just for them but the community. She said she received a call from a store employee after she was struck and believes she heard her mother take her last breath.
'I am haunted by the cruelty of how her life was taken,' Elisabeth Kim said. 'And I am devastated that I never had the chance to tell her that she was to become a grandmother for the first time, that my child will never get to know the woman who taught me what it means to be kind, brave and generous. The emotional toll is constant, from the heartache, the anger, the confusion to the disbelief. ...
'To the person who committed this crime, you took someone irreplaceable from us,' she continued. 'Your actions didn't just take a life, it shattered many lives. You have not shown an ounce of remorse or responsibility for your actions. You stole items that did not belong to you from a family that built the business from nothing. You walked past my mother as she lay dying on the floor without an attempt to help. You skipped out on your sentencing and insulted the court's good faith. You continue to lie to the judge and this court today. To this day, you do not share any details of other assailants to help close the homicide of my mother.'
She asked the judge to deliver justice to not only honor the life their mother lived, but to send a message that lives like hers mattered.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Shoplifter in Jacksonville store owner's death gets maximum sentence