Judge Thomas Rose accepted Kollie’s plea and scheduled the sentencing for Feb. 20.
First Assistant U. S. Attorney Vipal Patel said it isn’t clear how long of a sentence for which the U.S. Attorney’s Office will advocate.
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However, Patel said he believes the sentencing guideline for Kollie’s conviction is 34 to 41 months.
He added that there was no “dismissal of charges” or “charges dropped” as part of Kollie’s plea and that the U.S. Attorney’s office charged him with the charges that they had evidence to support.
INITIAL STORY:
Ethan Kollie, friend of Dayton Oregon District mass killer Connor Betts, is expected to plead guilty to federal firearms charges in U.S District Judge Thomas Rose’s court today.
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The Kettering man is the only person to have been charged thus far in an investigation of the Aug. 4 mass killing along East Fifth Street, a shooting spree that left 10 people dead, including Betts, 24, a Bellbrook man.
Prosecutors have not implicated Kollie for planning or having any direct role in carrying out the Aug. 4 killings.
The charges against Kollie, 24, have never involved the weapon Betts used in the Oregon District.
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Vipal Patel, first assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Ohio, has said, however, that a federal complaint alleges that Kollie bought the body armor, the double-barrel drum-style magazine and the upper receiver to the AR-style pistol that Betts used in the killings.
They allege also that he made a false statement on a firearm application and that he was in possession of a firearm by an unlawful user.
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Kollie’s attorneys have moved for some kind of home release detention under strict conditions. He has been in jail since several days after the Aug. 4 massacre.
“Mr. Kollie is expected to enter a plea of guilty pursuant to a plea agreement on Nov. 20, 2019,” Dayton defense attorney Nicholas Gounaris said in a recent motion to the court. “Considering that he will resolve his case by way of a plea agreement, Mr. Kollie respectively requests that this honorable court modify” the detention order.
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