Dean is to spend at least 11 years and could serve another four years in prison under the plea agreement.
Judge Robert Peeler found Dean guilty during a court hearing in Warren County Common Pleas Court.
Dean, who lost a kidney and was shot in the liver in the incident, told Peeler he was “one of the top readers” in his class while in school in Centerville.
Peeler and Dean’s lawyer, John Kaspar, both noted Dean was still a kid unable to make adult decisions or fully understand what was happening.
“Not only has Mr. Dean lost his freedom for a significant amount of time with consequences that are go through the remainder of his life,” Kaspar said. “He lost his best friend and his liberty in the space of one shot.”
Dean said he sneaked out of his home that night to “hang out with my friends,” but accepted responsibility for his actions.
“There’s no sugar-coating this,” he said.
Peeler suggested the case would be a good school lesson for high school students and noted Dean’s youth.
“I feel like I am sentencing a child to prison, and I am,” Peeler said.
Dean, who turned 17 while awaiting trial in the case, was not charged in adult court until Tuesday. His juvenile case was transferred for review by a Warren County grand jury on July 8.
Credit: Lawrence Budd
Credit: Lawrence Budd
Murder, aggravated robbery and conspiracy cases against Kayla Carmack, 17, of Turtlecreek Twp., and Dean were bound over from the juvenile court on the same day.
Earlier this month, Carmack pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for her role in the incident that resulted in the fatal shooting of Mason Trudics, 18, of Centerville, outside her home on Oregonia Road.
Carmack was back in juvenile court hearing Tuesday to establish her amenability to a 10 to 13-and-a-half year sentence in adult prison in connection with her involuntary-manslaughter plea.
Because he used a gun, Dean’s case is not expected to be sent back to juvenile court for an amenability hearing.
Also Tuesday, Dakota Cox, 18, of Washington Twp., Montgomery County, was in court on similar charges to those that followed the juveniles. He remained in the Warren County Jail on $1 million bond.
Credit: Law
Credit: Law
During Tuesday’s hearing, Assistant County Prosecutor Steven Knippen said a plea was likely “even next week” in Cox’s case. A plea was later scheduled for 8:30 a.m., Monday, Aug. 24.
This would conclude the last of the cases filed in the case.
In July, Jackson Pelphrey 17, of Centerville, and Jacobs Hicks, 16, of Washington Twp., Montgomery County, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and were sentenced to four years in juvenile detention for their parts in the fatal shooting. Like Pelphrey and Hicks, Cox was leaving the scene when the shooting started, according to his lawyer, Jon Paul Rion.
Pelphrey, Hicks, Carmack, Dean and Cox allegedly plotted to lure the intended victim “for the purposes of tying him up, stripping him of his clothes” and taking him back to his home. There, they planned to rob him and split the proceeds, including money and marijuana, Judge Joe Kirby said in sentencing filings in juvenile court.
At Carmack’s bedroom window, the shooter “heard a noise behind him only to find Trudics coming toward him with a baseball bat.” The intended robbery target fatally wounded Trudics and seriously wounded Dean, who fired two shots “as he was running away,” Kirby said in filings.
Trudics’ killer, found to be a victim in the case, has not been charged.
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