Rapper gets life for murder
Jermaine Dunkley guilty of 2013 revenge shooting
A Toronto gang leader and rapper broke down and cried Wednesday evening after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in the 2013 revenge shooting death of Neeko Mitchell outside a Rexdale community centre.
Superior Court Justice Ken Campbell immediately sentenced Jermaine Dunkley, 34, to an automatic life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
Jurors, who began deliberating Sunday, acquitted co-accused Sheldon Tingle, who reacted by bowing his head and pressing his hands together in prayer. He left the prisoner’s box a free man, and held a sobbing Dunkley in a long embrace.
Hours earlier, the jury sent a note to the judge indicating they had reached a verdict for one of the defendants, but were deadlocked on the other. The judge exhorted them to continue their deliberations to try to reach a unanimous decision about both men.
“We’re overjoyed by the verdict. We always believed he was innocent,” said Tingle’s lawyer, Scott Reid.
Tingle, a father of five who had no criminal record and was in custody for more than three years, “is going home to his family tonight,” his lawyer added.
Dunkley’s lawyer, Jeff Hershberg, was grim-faced after the verdict.
“Mr. Dunkley was convicted using evidence that I believe should play no part in criminal trials. Jermaine Dunkley should never have been convicted of this crime,” he wrote in a text message.
He declined to elaborate on which evidence and said his client will be looking at all the options, including an appeal.
A pre-trial ruling excluded 10 rap videos recorded by Dunkley under the name J Noble. Other evidence was admitted about Dunkley’s criminal lifestyle.
Both men testified during the two-month trial.
Prosecutors Liz Nadeau and Marco Cuda left the court declining comment.
The jury was told the shooter was neither Tingle nor Dunkley, but rather the latter’s second cousin, Reshane Hayles-Wilson, who fired eight bullets into the unarmed Mitchell outside the North Kipling Community Centre on Nov. 24, 2013.
He is serving a life sentence after a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder earlier this year.
The Crown alleged Dunkley, leader of a Toronto street gang called Monstarz, directed or ordered Hayles-Wilson to shoot Mitchell as payback because he believed he was involved in the murder of his younger brother Ricky Dunkley, 25, shot to death at a Brampton banquet hall in July 2013.
The defence argued Dunkley and Tingle had no motive to kill Mitchell and the Crown’s theory was nothing but speculation.
Dunkley’s legal troubles are not over.
Last year, police in Hamilton charged Dunkley, once a highschool basketball star in that city, with first-degree murder in a12-year-old case.
Michael Parmer, 22, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., was standing outside a Hamilton nightclub when he was shot to death on Sept. 9, 2005.
Det.-Sgt Steve Bereziuk, of the Hamilton force’s homicide squad, said “fresh evidence” led them to charge Dunkley, whom they allege was the triggerman. Police are still looking for two accomplices.
Atrial in Hamilton is expected sometime next year.