A 35-year-old Near East Side man apologized on Monday in a Franklin County courtroom for killing a man by firing a gun into a South Side duplex.
Raymond M. Johnson then received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 15 years in the death of 26-year-old Carlton Gibbs-Green.
Johnson, formerly of Lilley Avenue, pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the April 25, 2014 slaying. He was represented by Attorney Adam Lee Nemann.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Richard A. Frye imposed the mandatory sentence for the offense. Prosecutors dismissed eight counts of felonious assault, gun specifications and two counts of improperly discharging a firearm as part of a plea agreement.
Assistant Prosecutor Joseph Murnane said the shooting stemmed from an altercation between Gibbs-Green and the operator of an after-hours club on Whittier Street.
Gibbs-Green went home to a duplex in the 500 block of Mithoff Street and was followed there about 2:30 a.m. by Johnson, who worked for the club owner.
Johnson took a gun from an accomplice, Elewis L. Hobbs, and fired nine rounds into the duplex, where eight other people, including several children, were sleeping, Murnane said. One of the shots struck Gibbs-Green, who died about a half-hour later at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center.
“I would like to apologize to the Green family for what happened that night, and let them know that if I could take back everything that happened that night I would,” Johnson said.
Hobbs, 25, pleaded guilty in April to voluntary manslaughter with a gun specification. He is to be sentenced by Frye later this month.
