Couple end up in prison after romance turns to robbery

Here's a love story that does not end happily ever after. Instead of a castle, the beloved went to the "big house" for a heist they orchestrated during their romance.

When the affair began, she was a former bank teller and he was a felon convicted of bank robbery.

On Tuesday, Stephanie Jordan, 23, of Deptford, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Camden to three years and four months in prison for her part in the 2010 robbery of a gas station owner.

Jordan had worked as a teller at TD Bank at 1450 Clements Bridge Rd. in Deptford until she was fired in September 2009, according to court records.

She became romantically involved with Donnell Cheek, 27, of Voorhees, who in 2004 was charged with several bank robberies in Camden and Burlington Counties, records show.

His attorney at the time, Michael Kahn of Cherry Hill, said Tuesday that in 2004 Cheek needed a lawyer for a marijuana case and promised to return with money in a few days. He did, and later was charged with robbing the bank next to Kahn's office.

Although he was not convicted in the marijuana case, he later was convicted of possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of a gun while drug dealing, along with bank robberies.

More recently, Cheek - who had finished his prison sentence - started courting Jordan. She told Cheek that the owner of several Sunoco gas stations regularly made large deposits at TD Bank, and she shared that she thought it would be "exciting" to rob him, records show.

She took her beau past the owner's house, where she once attended a party, and said she knew his typical deposits, according to records.

On June 11, 2010, Cheek; his brother, Dashawn, 22, also of Voorhees, and Jamaine Levi, 23, of Lindenwold, kept watch on the owner's house and followed him to the bank.

The Cheek brothers pushed and punched the victim and took off with the money bag. The three men split the cash. Then the Cheek brothers met Jordan in the parking lot of the Voorhees library, where they turned over her share, according to court records. Less than two months later, Jordan was arrested.

All four have pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joseph Rodriguez. Dashawn Cheek has been sentenced to four years in prison. Levi was sentenced to nearly four years.

All three have been ordered to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $72,684 in restitution.

Donnell Cheek, incarcerated in Philadelphia, is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 15.