Columbus father pleads guilty in death of 5-year-old who shot herself with unsecured gun
A Columbus father pleaded guilty Monday to his role in his 5-year-old daughter's shooting death — a case that has connections to the ongoing legal battle between city officials and Ohio leaders over the city's efforts to enact gun safety controls.
Five-year-old Serenity Robinson shot herself in the head around 9:45 a.m. on July 31, 2021 with an unattended firearm inside her home on the 2100 block of Via Da Vinci Court on the city's Northeast Side, Columbus police and Franklin County prosecutors say.
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Columbus Division of Fire medics who responded to the scene reported seeing Antwan L. Robinson, 45, carrying the wounded girl outside of the home, according to a statement of facts read into the record Monday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
The girl was rushed to Nationwide Children's Hospital, where she died about an hour later of her injuries.
Robinson, of Columbus' Northeast Side, pleaded guilty Monday to involuntary manslaughter, as well as a charge of illegally having a weapon. Since Robinson was under felony indictment in separate cases at the time of his daughter's death, he was prohibited from legally possessing firearms.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors dismissed a second count of involuntary manslaughter, as well as a charge of endangering children. Prosecutors also agreed to waive a repeat violent offender specification based on Robinson's prior convictions, which would have mandated a longer prison sentence.
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Robinson also pleaded guilty Monday to felony charges of fentanyl possession, cocaine possession, heroin possession and theft in five separate cases, all in 2019. Two of the charges to which he pleaded guilty — cocaine possession and heroin possession — also included firearm specifications.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Jaiza Page scheduled a sentencing date of July 31 after both the prosecution and defense requested a pre-sentencing investigation.
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For pleading guilty to just the two charges stemming from the death of his daughter, Robinson faces a possible maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
Because of the Reagan Tokes Act intended to keep dangerous criminals who have not been reformed from being released, judges must give indefinite prison sentences for most first- and second-degree felonies. That means judges select a minimum sentence length — five-and-a-half years, in Robinson's case — at which it's presumed the defendant will be released.
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Serenity's mother, 26-year-old Breana R Mathews, was also at the home on the day that the girl accidentally shot herself. According to prosecutors, Mathews called 911 and later told police who arrived at the scene of the shooting that the handgun was under a mattress in the family's upstairs bedroom.
Mathews was initially indicted on one count each of involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangerment. Mathews pleaded guilty in November to a single count of involuntary manslaughter and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 17.
The handgun was registered to Mathews, prosecutors said, but Robinson also used it.
As Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Renee Amlin read the facts of the case in open court, Robinson could be seen putting his head down and closing his eyes. His mother, Barbara Robinson, also was visibly distraught in court as her son entered his guilty pleas.
When approached by The Dispatch after the plea hearing, Barbara Robinson described her son as "a good person" who struggles with addiction and mental health issues.
"He's a loving person," she said through tears. "And his kids are everything to him."
The battle over gun laws
Robinson's plea comes amid a heated battled between Columbus' Democratic city leaders and Ohio's Republican lawmakers and Attorney General Dave Yost over the city's recently passed "common sense" gun laws.
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Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein's office filed a lawsuit Thursday against the state of Ohio in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in a renewed attempt for city leaders to be able to put into place and enforce that gun safety ordinance.
Columbus City Council approved in December an ordinance that would, among other measures, effectively ban city residents from owning magazines containing 30 or more rounds. That legislation also requires safe gun storage around children and criminalizes giving or selling firearms to anyone prohibited from having them.
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and right-leaning think tank the Buckeye Institute filed lawsuits challenging the legality of the city's law in three counties in which Columbus lies. Cases involving Columbus' law had already been heard in Franklin County — where a decision allowing the new codes to go into effect was stayed — and Fairfield County, which effectively declined to interfere with the new measures.
But in April, Delaware County Common Pleas Judge David M. Gormley ruled that Columbus cannot enforce the city law restricting guns that went into effect in January while a challenge proceeds in that court.
The city's ordinance — which went into effect in January, well after a grand jury had indicted Robinson in December 2021 — adds to the crimes of negligent homicide and negligent assault “storing or leaving a deadly weapon” in a person's home if a minor could reasonably gain access to it. Violators face a third-degree misdemeanor, or — if a juvenile gains access to the weapon — a fourth-degree misdemeanor.
The law is intended to incentivize gun owners to secure guns in a safe, gun case or with a trigger lock.
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In what was the first test of the city’s new safe storage law for firearms, Klein announced in April that a father pleaded guilty to two counts of negligent storage of a firearm. The man's child found a loaded gun between the living room couch cushions on Jan. 27 at a West Side apartment and fired the weapon, narrowly missing his face.
Matthew Rivas, 28, was sentenced to 10 days in jail and two years of probation on April 4 following his plea.
More: Father pleads guilty after young child fires gun in first test of Columbus storage law
Eric Lagatta is a reporter at The Columbus Dispatch covering public safety, with a focus on in-depth coverage of social justice issues and crime trends.
elagatta@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Father pleads guilty in death of 5-yr-old daughter who shot herself
