A 42-year-old man has died nearly a month after he was robbed and shot outside a St. Paul bar.
Prosecutors charged a bartender and a man in the case last week and amended one of the charges Tuesday. Two other men are also charged, but their cases remain under seal until their arrests.
The victim went to Born’s Bar on Rice Street about 3:45 p.m. on Oct. 30. He paid for his drinks in cash, and surveillance video showed bartender Erica Ruth Hampton, 41, on her phone.
Edward G. Robinson (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
After police arrested her last week, investigators told Hampton that records “appeared to show her tipping her son off” as she called him minutes before the victim left the bar. Hampton said she had nothing to do with the incident. She said she hadn’t called anyone or told them about the money the victim had at the bar.
Also charged in the case is Edward G. Robinson, 43. He and Hampton have a 24-year-old son.
Surveillance video showed that Robinson and another man “posted up on the sidewalk outside Born’s Bar,” the complaint said. The 24-year-old son and another man were also there.
The victim left the bar about 5:45 p.m. and Robinson began to fight him, with others joining in, according to the complaint. A 39-year-old man shot the victim in the torso.
Police found a cross pendant and silver and gold necklaces, which were broken, on the ground. The victim told police he thought he had about $4,500 in cash because he’d planned to buy “a little bike.”
Robinson’s son “did not actively get involved in the fight,” but pulled items from the victim and picked up money from the ground when it fell from his pocket, said the complaints against his parents. Another man and a woman also picked up money from the ground.
The victim was taken to the hospital and into surgery, and talked to investigators at the hospital the next day. He said when he left the bar, a man he didn’t know but who he’d seen around asked him for a cigarette. The people with the man had their hoods up, which he made note of because it wasn’t cold.
On Nov. 1, the victim’s wife contacted investigators and reported he had fluid on his lungs and blood in his stomach. He went into cardiac arrest, but doctors revived him. He was on life support. His wife left the investigator a voicemail early Tuesday morning saying her husband died at the hospital after he was taken off life support.
Police did not immediately release the victim’s name on Tuesday.
Erica Ruth Hampton (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
An assault charge against Robinson was amended to first-degree riot resulting in death. He is also charged with two counts of aiding and abetting first-degree robbery. The charge against Hampton remains the same — aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact.
The complaint says the bar’s owner called her back to work “because something was going on with her son and his father.” She said she rushed back to the bar and watched surveillance footage with the owner.
Hampton said an officer asked the owner if he recognized anyone in the surveillance video.
“She didn’t respond to the officer’s question because she didn’t have anything to do with it,” the complaint said of her response to police.
Both Edwards and Hampton remained in the Ramsey County jail Tuesday. An attorney for them couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The owner of Born’s Bar declined comment.
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