Defendant in torture case gets 50 years

The last of four defendants charged with torturing three people in the basement of a Hilltop home was sentenced Wednesday to 50 years in prison — after he turned down a deal that likely would have brought him nine years.

Jonte G. Word, 27, showed no emotion as Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David E. Cain imposed the sentence.

A Franklin County jury convicted Word on Monday of eight counts of kidnapping, five counts of felonious assault, two counts of rape

and two counts of aggravated robbery, all with gun specifications, and one count of possessing a gun despite a felony conviction.

His sentence requires him to register as a sex offender every 90 days for the rest of his life after his release from prison. The jurors deliberated less than two hours before returning the verdicts.

Word went to trial last week after rejecting a plea offer from prosecutors that included a recommendation

for a nine-year sentence.

The crimes were committed against two men and a woman who were abducted at gunpoint in June 2013 after they went to a duplex on North Harris Avenue to return a stolen cellphone. They testified that they frequently went to the address to purchase bath salts, a designer drug.

The three said they were forced into the basement, where a running circular saw was held near the throats of the men, who said they were whipped and beaten for several hours.

The woman said she twice was forced at knifepoint to perform oral sex on an unidentified man after Word ordered her into another room.

Word also testified, insisting that he wasn’t at the duplex when the crimes were committed.

Cases against Word’s codefendants were resolved two years ago. Word had been on the run since he was indicted, and had been awaiting trial since September 2015, when he was arrested in Arkansas on an unrelated charge.

Obryan D. Jones, who was seen as the primary offender, was sentenced by Cain to 95

years in prison after a jury convicted him in May 2015 of the same charges faced by Word, who is his brother.

Marnell D. Jones, who is not related to Obryan Jones, pleaded guilty to two counts of felonious assault and one count of kidnapping and was sentenced to 21 years. He later won an appeal that allowed him to withdraw his pleas, and he reached another agreement that included a recommendation for a fiveyear sentence.

Belynda Coffman was sentenced to four years after she pleaded guilty to three counts of abduction.

Assistant Prosecutors Elizabeth Geraghty and Megan Jewett encouraged the judge to impose lengthy, consecutive sentences for Word.

“They were tortured in that basement, all over a cellphone,” Jewett said. Word “was a willing and active participant.”

Defense attorney Toure McCord argued that most of the offenses occurred “at the hands of Obryan Jones,” and that Word deserved a sentence similar to those of Coffman and Marnell Jones.