Dayton men plead guilty in 2023 gunfire exchange that killed 1, injured 4

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Two Dayton men have pleaded guilty in a case where an attempted robbery left an alleged accomplice dead, four total people shot, and the two facing murder charges.

Lawrence Michael Davis, 24, and Riyadh Nasier Pate, 20, both pleaded guilty in a pair of plea agreements to two indicted counts of felonious assault and one count of involuntary manslaughter charged via bill of information.

Lawrence Davis

Credit: Montgomery County Jail

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Credit: Montgomery County Jail

As part of the agreements, the two men agreed to a total prison sentence of four to eight years, plus an additional indeterminate prison term due to the Reagan Tokes Act.

The Reagan Tokes Act has a sentencing judge impose a minimum prison term from within the established sentencing range and a maximum prison term of an additional 50% of the minimum. So if the judge sentences a defendant to four years of prison, the maximum term would be six years.

Riyadh Pate

Credit: Montgomery County Jail

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Credit: Montgomery County Jail

Afterward, the men will face up to five years of parole.

The charges otherwise could carry total fines of up to $50,000, and prison times of two to eight years for each felonious assault charge and three to 11 years for the involuntary manslaughter charge.

The pair are scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 30, and at the time of writing were both in the Montgomery County Jail.

Charges stem from June 4, 2023, when Dayton police responded to a shooting at an apartment in the 300 block of Superior Avenue.

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

In the hallway outside the apartment, police found a man who was pronounced dead, identified as Kevin Eugene Jones II, 38, of Dayton by the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office.

At the time, Dayton police Maj. Brian Johns said that Jones drove a Chevrolet Tahoe that arrived at the apartment with Davis, Pate and a fourth unidentified man.

Jones and Pate went into the apartment first to meet with a man and woman inside. A few minutes later Davis arrived with the unidentified person, who was wearing a mask. They ran into the apartment and started shooting at the couple, according to an affidavit filed in Dayton Municipal Court.

The affidavit said, “At this same time, Jones and Pate pull out guns and start shooting at (the apartment residents). While Jones, Pate and the other male wearing the mask are fleeing the apartment, all three are shot.”

The apartment residents were both shot as well and were taken to Miami Valley Hospital.

Video from outside the apartment building showed Davis, Pate and the unknown man leave out the back door, get into a white SUV and flee the scene, court records said. Dayton police tried to stop the SUV and chased it for about two minutes until it stopped outside Miami Valley Hospital.

Of the four shot in the incident, two were seriously injured, including the woman from inside the apartment, the major said.

After the shooting, Johns said police seized a large amount of drugs from the apartment, mainly marijuana and marijuana-type products.

Under Ohio law, defendants can be charged for any death that occurs during an aggravated burglary, including the death of an accomplice, according to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office. So even though they didn’t shoot Jones, among other charges Davis and Pate were charged with murder.

The case moved to trial this year but ended in a hung jury on Sept. 20.

On Sept. 23, Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Angelina Jackson acquitted the pair of two counts of murder and two counts of felonious assault after defense attorneys moved for a judgement of acquittal. Jackson wrote in a dismissal that she found the evidence “insufficient as a matter of law to sustain a conviction” on those counts.

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