A man with residences in Warren, Detroit and Southgate is accused of operating a second criminal enterprise involving the theft of new vehicles, this time targeting newly delivered, high-end vehicles to a General Motors corporate lot.

A probable-cause court hearing was held Friday for Deon Charleston Brooks, 24, in 37th District Court in Warren, providing details of Brooks’ alleged involvement in three bulk thefts of 13 new, high-priced vehicles, including several Cadillac Escalades, from a GM lot off of 11 Mile Road west of Van Dyke near the Tech Center in Warren. Each vehicle’s value ranged from about $85,000 to $125,000.

Brooks allegedly retagged vehicles, gave them fake Vehicle Identification Numbers and sold them in other states, according to authorities. He is charged with operating a criminal enterprise, aka racketeering, in connection with the three incidents in Warren.

He also is accused of operating a criminal enterprise in the Washington Township area from August 2023 to February 2024, when he was caught following an incident and charged with unlawful driving away of a vehicle, conspiracy to commit unlawful driving away of a vehicle, fourth-degree fleeing police and resisting arrest. In that case, he faces a pretrial Monday in front of Judge Anthony Servitto in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens.

Racketeering is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Jeffrey Holewa, who manages GM corporate vehicles as an employee of GLS North America, testified Friday at Brooks’ preliminary examination in front of Judge Steven Bieda about the trio of incidents, of which at least two were tried to Brooks. In the incidents last February, January and December, culprits accessed a parking lot near, one mile south of the GM Tech Center, where new vehicles were dropped off for corporate use around the world, Holewa testified. The targeted vehicles’ keys were inside them since they had not yet been processed for distribution, he said.

At about 3 p.m. Dec. 9, a red 2017 Chrysler Pacifica that was later traced to Brooks entered the GM corporate lot, according to video shown by Assistant Macomb County Prosecutor Jeff Hall. The video depicts unidentified people from the Pacifica go to the unlocked vehicles and steal two Escalades valued at $100,000 and $95,000, a GMC Yukon Denali valued at $85,000 and a Chevy Tahoe High Country worth $110,00, as identified by Holewa, by driving them out of the lot through a gate.

Employees in January learned five more vehicles had been swiped at about 4 a.m. Jan. 7, including another Tahoe High County, a Suburban Premier and three Escalades, Holewa said. Video shows five people dressed in heavy, dark clothing dropped off from a vehicle on George Merelli Drive, which is off of 11 Mile Road, and jogging through the warehouse-parts parking lot before entering the corporate lot and stealing the vehicles.

On Feb. 3, based on video, four individuals are dropped off at about the same location as the December incident on George Merelli and seen walking along the same warehouse-parts lot before stealing an Escalade, a Denali, a Suburban Premier and Tahoe High Country, as identified by Holewa. A driver of one of the stolen vehicles blocked a responding security vehicle from intervening to allow the escapes, according to testimony.

In response after the first incident, the company “added a multitude of security measures that were not in place” before, testified Holewa, who said GM contracts with another company to provide security.

In the second two incidents, the first vehicle crashed through the exit gate in order to flee, according to testimony.

Following the first incident, police officers from the Macomb Auto Theft Squad quickly identified Brooks as a suspect by obtaining the license plate number of the red Pacifica seen in the video. Macomb Sheriff’s Sgt. Cameron Wright, who heads MATS, said the Texas plate was traced to Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which rented the small SUV to a man associated with Brooks and who was known to MATS officers due to prior contacts.

MATS investigators spotted the Pacifica and a stolen Escalade at a home Dec. 13 on Fisher Street, near Mack Avenue, on the east side of Detroit, near the residence of the man associated with Brooks, Wright said.

Officers conducted surveillance and stopped the Escalade on Mack near Fisher. The vehicle had a Georgia license plate number that had no record and a fake VIN sticker with several zeros, which Wright said he had never seen before, that also showed no record. The legitimate VIN was found “stamped” on the frame, he said. The vehicle was impounded and the driver arrested by Detroit police for possession of a stolen vehicle; Wright said he did not know the outcome of that case.

In late December, MAT investigators obtained a warrant for Brooks’ arrest and stopped him in a vehicle after he left a second downriver residence in Brownstown Township. He had two cell phones and $5,000 in cash but was not formally charged.

In a search of his apartment at Southgate Apartments and Townhouses near Fort Street (M-85) and Pennsylvania Road, officers found a gold Rolex watch, a pair of diamond and gold ear rings, a printer and two scanners, ink bottles, a “sticker maker used to make federal vehicle stickers,” four temporary tags for Virginia license plates, a Georgia license plate tag, a “high tech engraver” for stamping metal and a Michigan title to a 2015 Escalade, according to Wright.

The Brownstown residence was also searched but little was found, the sergeant said.

In February, MATS officers spotted one of the stolen Escalades, with damage, in a vacant lot on Illinois Street, near Gratiot and Mack avenues, next to a home of a Brooks associate, Wright said. A black Pacifica registered to Brooks was parked nearby. Surveilling officers saw a BMW sedan, registered to a St. Clair Shores locksmith, arrive, and individuals used cables to connect electronics between the BMW and Escalade, he said. The Escalade was recovered by police.

Brooks, followed by MATS investigators in unmarked vehicles, drove away in the Escalade, went on northbound Gratiot and turned east onto Seymour Street, where he parked the Escalade in the garage of an abadoned home between Gratiot and Chalmers and shut the garage door, Wright said. Brooks entered the Pacific, which had followed him in the Escalade, and left.

Brooks was arrested March 11, police said.

Brooks’ attorney, Marshall Goldberg, challenged aspects a search warrant request for the Southgate residence, including vagueness because investigators didn’t know the number of Brooks’ unit; they only knew his apartment building, which contained several units.

Wright responded that he gained an “anticipatory” search warrant.

Goldberg also questioned the relevance of seizing the jewelry.

“This is a criminal enterprise case, not just auto theft,” Wright replied.

Warren police Detective William Bechill, who is part of MATS, described a unique incident last Dec. 19 when he and another officer were installing a license plate reader closer to the entrance/exit of GM’s corporate lot than other cameras to help identify potential theft suspects when he saw the suspect vehicle, the red Pacifica, drive by. Officers followed the Pacifica in Bechill’s unmarked vehicle, identified Brooks as the driver and watched it go onto eastbound Interstate 696, he said.

Police later found a photo of Bechill’s unmarked vehicle on Brooks’ phone.

Under cross examination, Bechill acknowledged Brooks also had an address on Karen Avenue in Warren, located less than two miles south of the GM lot.

In other testimony about Brooks’ phone, Bechill said it also showed several photos of one or more Cadillac Escalades, a Chevy Tahoe and Brooks wearing a gold Rolex watch with an Escalade.

Other evidence includes Brooks’ cell phone “pinging” three times at cell-phone towers near the thefts seen in Warren from 3:12 p.m. to 4:19 p.m. Dec. 9, around the time of the initial incident, Bechill said.

In addition, Brooks’ black Pacifica was spotted by the license-reader cameras three times in the area of the thefts from 2:24 a.m. to 3:11 a.m. Feb. 3, around the time of the third incident, according to Bechill.

The hearing was not completed as Bieda granted Goldberg’s request that the prosecutor provide Warren police’s phone expert to testify at a later date.

A new date was not set.

Brooks remains held in the county jail in lieu of a $2 million bond.