Man gets 8 years for 2013 homicide
A man accused of firing the shots that killed Edward Glenn Jr. in a deadly 2013 robbery pleaded guilty Monday morning to facilitation of first-degree murder.
Eric McReynolds, 30, is the third person to face jail time in connection to Glenn’s slaying.
The two other defendants, Carmisha Lay and Stephen Lester, were convicted and sentenced in late 2015 and early 2016. Lay was sentenced to 15 years and Lester to life with the possibility of parole after 51 years.
McReynolds, who also was facing separate gang- related racketeering charges until a judge dismissed them earlier this year, was sentenced on Monday to eight years in prison.
Glenn died on Jan. 10, 2013. At Lester’s trial, prosecutors said Lay and Lester, both gang members in the Athens Park Bloods, arranged the fatal robbery of Glenn, a 28-year-old father of five.
In a plea agreement, Lay agreed to testify against Lester at trial.
She testified that she and Glenn had been friends since she was 16, and she knew Glenn carried lots of money on him from drug dealing. She said she told Lester he would
be an easy target.
So between 3 and 4 a.m. that day, Lay texted Lester to say Glenn was inside her house, where they had taken drugs and gone to bed together.
Prosecutors said Lester recruited McReynolds, another Athens Park Blood known as “Donkey,” and drove to Lay’s home.
Once there, McReynolds pistol-whipped Glenn in the head and face, Lay said. Glenn cooperated when the men asked for his money.
Then, Lay said, Lester commanded McReynolds to shoot Glenn.
McReynolds wasn’t charged with Glenn’s killing until mid-2018. At the same time, he was named in a sprawling indictment of 55 alleged gang members under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
It essentially charged each defendant with one count of engaging in criminal gang offenses ( racketeering) and one count of conspiracy to engage in criminal gang activity ( racketeering conspiracy). It also included 23 other charges, but not all defendants faced all 23 charges.
McReynolds faced one of those additional charges: first-degree premeditated murder.
The racke teering charges he faced were later dismissed by Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Tom Greenholtz, who cited the state’s failure to show a pattern of racketeering activity or conspiracy as defined by state law. Of the original 55 defendants, only eight still face racketeering charges.
The other charges were ordered to be separated into individual cases, of which McReynolds’ was one.
On Monday, he pleaded guilty to facilitation of especially aggravated robbery and facilitation of second-degree murder. He received an eight-year sentence for each charge, but he is to serve those concurrently, meaning he will spend a total of eight years in prison.