David Joseph Dalesandro (York County Sheriff’s Office)
A 25-year-old South Carolina man is looking to duck the armed robbery charge he was zapped with for allegedly holding up a convenience store with a video game pistol painted black. Though the Duck Hunt pistol is not a real weapon, serious prison time is not out of the realm of possibility.
David Joseph Dalesandro of Sharon, South Carolina, who prior to now faced three different speeding infraction cases (two in 2021 and one in 2018) in York County, is charged with armed robbery with a deadly weapon, petit larceny, and a charge of “wearing masks and the like,” detention center records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to the York County Sheriff’s Office, the incident took place at a Kwik Stop convenience store on York St around 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday.
Dalesandro was allegedly wearing a wig, a mask, and a hoodie when he brandished the video game pistol and demanded that the convenience store clerk empty out the cash register.
“Approximately $300 was taken from the clerk,” authorities said in a press release.
Though the defendant took off, deputies said, he was tracked down at a nearby Dollar General.
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“Deputies found the duck hunt pistol in Dalesandro’s pants,” the sheriff’s office said.
Duck Hunt, which was first released all the way back in 1984, is a still-popular shooting game that many Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) owners received when they purchased the iconic system. Gamers also received an NES Zapper pistol to use as a controller.
How might Dalesandro be credibly charged for possessing a deadly weapon when he allegedly used a video game gun, you might ask? South Carolina law says that the mere representation of possessing a deadly weapon that a witness reasonably believed to be a real gun is enough to put the defendant away for 7 to 10 years upon conviction [emphasis ours]:
A person who commits robbery while armed with a pistol, dirk, slingshot, metal knuckles, razor, or other deadly weapon, or while alleging, either by action or words, he was armed while using a representation of a deadly weapon or any object which a person present during the commission of the robbery reasonably believed to be a deadly weapon, is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be imprisoned for a mandatory minimum term of not less than ten years or more than thirty years, no part of which may be suspended or probation granted. A person convicted under this subsection is not eligible for parole until the person has served at least seven years of the sentence.
Prosecutors will doubtless argue that the store clerk’s decision to hand over the $300 reflected the clerk’s reasonable belief that Dalesandro was, in fact, armed with a deadly weapon — as the defendant allegedly represented.
Petit larceny of goods under $2,000, a misdemeanor, is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to 30 days in jail.
As for the mask-wearing offense, South Carolina law says generally that no one 16 or older “shall appear or enter upon any lane, walk, alley, street, road, public way or highway of this State or upon the public property of the State or of any municipality or county in this State while wearing a mask or other device which conceals his identity.”
The defendant was booked after 11 p.m. on Tuesday into the York County Detention Center. It’s unclear if he has an attorney of record.
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