Gang members will serve life in prison for killings
Clifford L. Robinson was convicted in the Aug. 19, 2007 slaying of Donathan Moon during a bachelor party robbery. But he didn’t pull the trigger.
Robert L. Wilson III also pleaded guilty to Moon’s murder, and two other slayings. He did pull the trigger.
Wilson, 28, who prosecutors said “coldly executed Moon” with a .45-caliber pistol, was sentenced in January in federal court in Columbus to 38 years in prison.
On Wednesday, Robinson, 39, who was among the Short North Posse members who raided the party for drugs and money, was sentenced in the same courtroom to two life prison terms without the possibility of parole. He will die in prison, barring a successful appeal.
Such is the risk of taking your chance at trial instead of pleading guilty, defense attorneys said.
Robinson was one of six Short North Posse defendants who insisted on rolling the dice with a jury, and lost. He was convicted of murder in aid of racketeering and use of a firearm in a crime of violence. He had rejected a prosecution offer of 12 years in prison because he believed he was innocent, defense attorney Steve Nolder said.
Robinson offered his condolences to Moon’s family members seated in the courtroom gallery Wednesday, but added, “I can’t stand here and accept responsibility or apologize for his murder, or the events leading up to it.”
Moon, 27, was a guest at a bachelor party in Pataskala when the gang raided the house for drugs and money. They burst into a bedroom where Moon was with his girlfriend. One attacker wounded him.
Moon was on the ground pleading for his life when Wilson shot him because he had seen Wilson’s face.
“There’s no testimony or evidence that you actually pulled the trigger in this case,” U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley told Robertson. But his only choice was between death and life in prison, and the U.S. attorney general took death off the table last year.
Fellow gang member Deounte Ussury, 32, was sentenced Wednesday to six life terms. Although four will be served at the same time, he’ll still have a total of three life terms.
He was convicted in June of three counts of murder, two of using a firearm in a crime resulting in death, and one of racketeering.
Prosecutors said Ussury killed fellow gang member Marcus Peters, 33, during a botched burglary on Oct. 6, 2007; Dante Hill, 20, during a North Side drug deal on Dec. 12, 2007; and Marschell Brumfield Jr. 24, a rival drug dealer, during a North Side robbery on April 22, 2007.
The Short North Posse targeted rivals who were dealing drugs on their turf or were thought to have large stashes of cash and drugs.
Nolder and Ussury’s attorney, Kirk A. McVay, noted to Marbley that his clients grew up in dysfunctional households.
“The gang may have been the only family they knew,” the judge said. However, he said, “I’ve wondered what the Short North would have been like if their effort would have gone into positive things.”
Marbley said a lot of kids grew up in the Short North Posse’s neighborhood of Weinland Park and, through hard work, succeeded in life. The crackdown on the gang and development efforts are transforming the neighborhood north of Downtown.
Marbley eventually will sentence all 19 Short North Posse defendants. The 20th, Rastaman Wilson, also charged in Moon’s death, died of cancer in January 2016.