Court roundup: Columbus man pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter, gets 25 years

A Columbus man admitted Wednesday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court that he fatally shot and robbed a man he was buying drugs from at a South Side home in 2021.

Ricky D. Jobe II, 38, of the South Side, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and aggravated burglary with gun specifications in connection with the death of 38-year-old Darold Reese on Dec. 28, 2021. Franklin County prosecutors dropped murder and other charges under a plea agreement.

Reese, whom his family described at Jobe’s sentencing hearing as a caring and loving father, had three young daughters.

Judge Stephen McIntosh sentenced Jobe Wednesday to a total indefinite prison term of at least 25 years, at the joint recommendation of Jobe’s attorney and Franklin County prosecutors. Jobe could serve a sentence of up to 30 years and six months if he gets into trouble while in prison.

Paul Scott, Jobe’s defense attorney, said Jobe was a football player at an Ohio university in the 2000s who later dealt with old football injuries affecting his health. After knee surgeries, Jobe became addicted to painkillers, Scott said.

Before Jobe struggled with substance use disorder, Scott said Jobe was a hard-working, upstanding family man. He is married with three kids.

“There’s such a steep decline and fall from grace,” Scott said, referring to a two-year period after Jobe had surgery.

Scott told McIntosh during the sentencing hearing Jobe played football at the University of Akron for four years. After The Dispatch contacted the University of Akron's athletics department Wednesday afternoon and they couldn't confirm Jobe's time there, Scott told The Dispatch Thursday that Jobe attended the University of Akron for one year on a football scholarship, then transferred to Urbana University to play football on a scholarship for four years and graduated in 2008.

McIntosh said before sentencing Jobe that “addiction is a bad thing and I see people every day in the throes of addiction.”

“Very few of them though go to this extreme to feed their addiction,” McIntosh said of the fatal shooting of Reese.

Past reporting:Columbus police arrest South Side man for late-December homicide in Merion Village

Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Pfefferle said Reese had a security camera set up inside his rental house in the Merion Village neighborhood at the counter where he would sell drugs to clients.

That camera captured Jobe entering the home, speaking with Reese and beginning to pay Reese on an app on Reese’s phone, Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Bryan Potter said during the sentencing hearing.

Jobe then pulled out a handgun and told Reese to lay down before chasing Reese off camera, Potter said.

“Jobe is heard saying, ‘I’ll shoot you,’ and then one gun shot is heard,” Potter said.

Jobe then instructed Reese’s girlfriend, who was present, to lay down and she begged him not to do anything else, saying her son was in the home, Potter said.

Jobe then took money from the countertop and an open safe and took the phones of both Reese and Reese’s girlfriend, according to Potter.

The woman used another phone to call 911, Potter said. Responding Columbus police found Reese with a gunshot wound to the chest, from which he died soon after.

More court news:Ex-Guardsman gets total 6 years for mass shooting threats, illegal gun sales

In other court news:

Columbus man who exchanged gunfire with Franklin Township police pleads guilty

A Columbus man who exchanged gunfire with Franklin Township police in 2021, triggering a manhunt and evacuations to nearby residences, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

Joshua R. Pennington, 33, of the South Side, pleaded guilty to felonious assault with a firearm specification, a misdemeanor count of domestic violence and possessing a weapon under disability (having a gun as a convicted felon).

Franklin County prosecutors dropped another felonious assault charge related to the domestic violence.

Pennington is scheduled to be sentenced on April 7.

Past reporting:Suspect who exchanged gunfire with officers in custody after hours-long search in Franklin Township

Columbus man who caused 2018 crash that killed three pleads guilty

A Near East Side man admitted that while driving under the influence of alcohol in 2018 he caused a multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 71 north of Downtown that killed three people and injured three others, including himself.

Corey Johnson, 36, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and one count of aggravated vehicular assault in connection with the crash, which occurred around 1:35 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2018.

Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Dan Cable said Johnson was driving south in the northbound lanes of I-71. Johnson got on at the East 17th Avenue ramp and near East 11th Avenue hit a car head-on and that rotated his vehicle into the path of a second car, Cable said.

One of the struck vehicles then was pushed into a fourth vehicle, according to a Columbus police report.

Following the crash, Johnson and a passenger, Raven Shepard, were taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center in critical condition.

In one of the vehicles struck head-on, two sisters, 20-year-old Amal Mohamed and 18-year-old Aniza Abdi Karim died at the scene. Amina Mohamed, 15, then an eighth grader at Columbus City's Wedgewood Middle School who was also in that vehicle, was taken to Nationwide Children's Hospital in critical condition.

Gabriel Ried Akomeah, 34, of Columbus, who was in a different vehicle struck head-on, also died at the scene, police said.

Police reported that at the time of the crash Johnson had a blood-alcohol content (BAC) level of .212 percent, more than twice the level at which a person is deemed impaired in Ohio.

Johnson will be sentenced on June 8.

jlaird@dispatch.com

@LairdWrites

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus man gets 25 year in prison for voluntary manslaughter in 2021