Felon admits to having gun illegally

A Columbus man convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2012 shooting of a home intruder is facing up to a decade in prison after admitting in federal court Monday to having a firearm in December on the Southeast Side.

Donald E. Griffin III,

26, of the King-lincoln neighborhood, was barred from possessing the pistol under his previous felony conviction.

According to court documents, officers observed Griffin fleeing from outside a Refugee Road hookah business on Dec. 16 with a gun in his hand.

“Officers believed that they had just observed a shooting,” the court records say, and Griffin was found with a firearm when he was stopped in a vehicle shortly afterwards.

Griffin admitted to the facts in the case before U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson on Monday and pleaded guilty to a single count of illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Watson will decide Griffin’s sentence in coming weeks.

Griffin pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter after shooting an intruder at an Easthaven Drive home in October 2012. Prosecutors at the time said Griffin leaned out a window and shot 29-year-old Quenton Savage as he fled.

Griffin maintained he began firing in self defense; prosecutors countered that Savage was shot after he left the home and was no longer a threat.

Griffin served about two years of the resulting fouryear sentence before being granted judicial release in May 2016, according to state prison records.