Appeal starts for teen in fatal shooting
The Kettering teen convicted of lesser charges in a 2016 murder case involving a Fairmont High School student’s death has filed a notice of appeal.
An attorney for Kylen Gregory, 19, is challenging the adult court jurisdiction where the case involving the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Ronnie Bowers was resolved, court records show.
An 11-year sentence minus time served was imposed on Gregory in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court in December after a Juvenile Court Judge Anthony Capizzi ruled the defendant was not a good candidate to be rehabilitated in that system by his 21st birthday.
Attorney Ben Swift cited “juvenile amenability hearing; sentencing” as probable issues for review by the 2nd District Court of Appeals of Ohio, court records state.
Swift said after Gregory’s sentencing that he planned to appeal. Assistant County Prosecutor Lynda Dodd said she was “confident that everything will stand...”
Capizzi’s ruling followed an amenability hearing in juvenile court, where the case was mandated after Gregory was not convicted of murder, the charge that sent the case to adult court.
Gregory was convicted by a jury of reckless homicide and a related charge in November 2018 after he testified he fired a shot at Bowers’ car that authorities said fatally wounded the victim in what was Kettering’s first gun-related homicide since 2007.
Gregory then pleaded guilty to felonious assault charges last year, and received an adult court sentence, which was stayed pending the juvenile court hearing.
Gregory had been in custody since shortly after the shooting, effectively making his sentence fewer than eight years.
Since November 2012, Gregory’s is only one of a few Montgomery County juvenile cases to go to adult court, return to juvenile and then go back to adult, court officials said. During that time, at least 88 juvenile cases have been bound over to adult court, records show.
Gregory and Bowers did not know each other at the time of the shooting that occurred on Willowdale Avenue on Sept. 4, 2016, when the victim was seeking to drive away after a confrontation that started earlier at AlterFest, court witnesses said.
Neither of the two was involved in the initial confrontation, witnesses said.