Man who stole vehicle when he was a teen sentenced to prison

A man who as a teenager who was given a chance to avoid prison after stealing a vehicle from Grafton and leading police on a high speed chase in 2022 squandered that opportunity and was sentenced to two years in prison last week for violating his probation.

Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain also sentenced Jacquon L. Dawson to two years of extended supervision following his incarceration.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Dawson, who is now 21, was caught hiding a shotgun in his pants and under his shirt at Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa on Oct. 24, 2025, after a person on a Milwaukee County bus reported seeing a man who appeared to be concealing a long gun.

In the Ozaukee County case, Dawson, who was 18 at the time of his crime and lived in West Bend, pleaded guilty to one felony count of operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent in August 2023. Judge Paul Malloy withheld a prison sentence, placed him on probation for three years and ordered him to serve one year in the county jail as a condition of probation.

A charge of fleeing authorities, also a felony, was dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

According to a criminal complaint, just before 1 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022, a Grafton resident who lived on Cherokee Street called authorities to report that someone had just stolen his orange Jeep Wrangler from his driveway.

An officer responding to the report spotted the Jeep at the intersection of Washington Street and Cheyenne Avenue and did a U-turn to follow the vehicle. The Jeep then did a U-turn and the officer turned around again and activated his emergency lights and siren. The Jeep sped away.

As the Jeep raced east on Washington Street into the Town of Grafton, then pulled into a subdivision before turning onto Ulao Road, the officer deployed tire spikes, but the driver of the Jeep drove into the ditch to avoid them.

Eventually, the Jeep merged onto southbound I-43 and Grafton officers alerted Mequon and Bayside police. Bayside officers deployed tire spikes, but missed the Jeep, which then veered across both lanes in what appeared to be an attempt to hit a squad car, the complaint states.

At one point in the chase, a Grafton officer attempted to force the Jeep to spin out, but the Jeep quickly braked, then drove into the ditch and up the southbound ramp toward Brown Deer Road.

River Hills and Glendale police officers joined the chase and were able to successfully deploy tire spikes, causing the driver of the Jeep to come to a stop in a driveway at North 18th Street in Milwaukee.

Three people ran from the vehicle. Only the rear-seat passenger, Damien L. Fonseca, 17, of West Bend, was caught.

Investigators learned that a group of teenagers from West Bend had been at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Grafton drinking and celebrating a birthday. Fonseca and others at the party told officers that Dawson was the driver of the stolen Jeep and Kieran V. Doherty, 17, of West Bend, was the front-seat passenger, according to the complaint.

Investigators were told by witnesses that at midnight, Dawson, Doherty and Fonseca left the hotel to drive Doherty home, but first they stopped in a nearby neighborhood and were caught on doorbell camera video walking from house to house pulling on the door handles of vehicles, the complaint states.

Fonseca told authorities that during the chase he told Dawson to stop the Jeep because he wanted to get out, but Dawson told him he had been in chases before and had always gotten away, according to the complaint.

Doherty and Fonseca were each charged with a misdemeanor count of intentionally being a passenger in a stolen vehicle.

Doherty pleaded no contest to that charge in February 2023. Malloy sentenced him to six months in jail but stayed the sentence, placed him on probation for a year and ordered him to serve 20 days in the county jail as a condition of probation.

Fonseca pleaded guilty to the charge in April 2023 and was placed on probation for a year.