Attorney says prosecutors won't find jury to convict client of Columbus imam's kidnapping

For the second time, a Franklin County jury could not decide whether to convict a Columbus man accused of kidnapping Mohamed Hassan Adam, a prominent imam in the local Somali community who was found fatally shot in December 2021.

The retrial of Isaiah Brown-Miller, 23, of the city's Northeast Side, on charges of kidnapping and aggravated robbery in connection with the death of Adam, 48, began June 20 and ended Thursday the same way the first trial did.

After deliberating for several hours on Thursday, the jury declared it was hung Thursday afternoon. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Karen Phipps declared a mistrial.

Miller was not charged with or on trial for murder. His codefendant, 47-year-old John Wooden, of the city's Franklinton neighborhood, is scheduled to go on trial on Aug. 14 for aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery, among other charges.

Brown-Miller's case was a retrial after a different Franklin County jury could not reach a decision in February.

The jury was split six to six this time on whether to convict. In February, was split 10-2 in favor of a guilty verdict, according to Brown-Miller’s defense attorney, Toure McCord.

McCord told The Dispatch Thursday that he will be filing a motion soon to ask Phipps to dismiss this case. He said he hopes the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office "does the right thing" and decides to drop these charges.

"I don't believe the state of Ohio is ever going to be able to find 12 jurors that are going to vote to convict him," McCord said of his client.

Franklin County First Assistant Prosecutor Janet Grubb, head of the criminal division, told The Dispatch on Thursday that the office will consider all of their options and make a decision in the coming days on whether to retry Brown-Miller.

Grubb declined to comment on whether other individuals whom prosecutors said during the trials were involved in the robbery will be brought before a grand jury for possible indictment.

Prosecutors said during the trials that Brown-Miller and Wooden were attempting to get money from Adam and possibly from the mosque’s funds to which the imam had access.

Adam was an imam at Masjid Abu Hurairah mosque on the Northeast Side, and described as a pillar of the Columbus Somali and Muslim communities.

He was last seen alive on Dec. 22, 2021, when he left home to pick up his child from a daycare center on Oakland Park Avenue. Adam's family reported him missing when they did not hear from him. His body was later discovered on Dec. 24, 2021 by a van in an overgrown lot on Windsor Avenue on the city’s North Side.

Records show that lot was owned by Wooden and others, according to evidence presented at trial. Other records show Wooden and Adam knew each other since Wooden sold a truck to Adam in October 2021.

According to a video presented at trial, Adam was captured by a surveillance camera the night he went missing at an ATM along with a man wearing a white mask and white gloves.

A friend of Adam’s testified he received a call that night during which two men spoke and told him to bring money.

During both trials, prosecutors pored over cellphone records and electronic money transfer records from the night of Dec. 22, 2021. Prosecutors attempted to link Brown-Miller to a burner phone that connected to the same cell towers as Adam’s cellphone multiple times that night, indicating the phones were together.

“Follow the evidence and follow the money,” Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Jack Wong said during closing arguments on Wednesday.

There were numerous failed transactions on Cash App, a money-transferring app, from Adam’s cellphone to other people on the night he went missing, according to prosecutors. Some transactions were for thousands of dollars.

Prosecutors said in court that those transactions were connected to Brown-Miller, linking them to the same address and pointing to cellphone calls.

In closing arguments, McCord said prosecutors failed to prove their case, providing some alternative suspects with their own ties to addresses cited during the trial or who received Cash App transactions. McCord also said police and prosecutors did not prove Brown-Miller had the burner phone or was involved in any way.

For example, McCord told The Dispatch it's "insane" that a Columbus police homicide detective could have records of transactions going directly to somebody and never actually interview that person on tape.

jlaird@dispatch.com

@LairdWrites

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Second hung jury in trial of man charged with kidnapping Columbus imam