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Thread: Jocquez Ross Sentenced to 43 Years to Life in 2017 OH Murder of Michael Lewis and his Wife, Fannie Lewis

  1. #11
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    FBI agent: Cellular data puts Jocquez Ross' phone near murder scene

    Cellular phone records call into question Jocquez Ross' alibis for the time during which he is accused of shooting to death a married couple in a rental car near Midway Mall in January 2016, an FBI agent testified Wednesday.

    Ross, 29, of Lorain, is on trial on charges of aggravated murder and other felonies in the deaths of Michael "LuLu" Lewis and Fannie Thomas Lewis. He could receive the death penalty if a Lorain County Common Pleas jury recommends it.

    Supervisory Special Agent Kevin Horan of the FBI's Cellular Analysis Survey Team, or CAST, testified Wednesday in Judge Christopher Rothgery's court that Ross' phone signal hit off a number of cellphone towers in Lorain and Cuyahoga counties on Jan. 31, 2016.

    Ross, who has pleaded not guilty and is being held in Lorain County Jail on $2 million bond, told authorities he was playing basketball at South Park Recreation Center in Elyria that day, while his girlfriend Brooke Nolen said he also was taking care of her at her Princeton Avenue home that day.

    Nolen said she was recovering from an injury she got the previous week — a cut on her wrist she got while drunkenly washing dishes — and was high on painkillers, marijuana and alcohol that weekend. She told police she thought Ross was at her home the whole day caring for her, but she refused to testify in court.

    Horan testified that his training allowed him to look at historic cellphone data and records and place Ross' phone in the general vicinity of the murders on the night in question during the time period the Lewises were shot and killed.

    Cell towers put out a "known signal," or "footprint," that spreads out in a circle, 360 degrees from the center of each tower, divided into three 120-degree sectors.

    "You can't see (the footprint) because it's radio frequencies," but you can re-create the footprint on a map and show what it looks like, Horan testified.

    Each cellphone chooses a tower — not necessarily the closest to it, but one with the strongest signal as determined by geography and terrain, he testified.

    "Cell towers tell us where on the Earth a phone could have been," Horan said. In the case of Ross' phone, Horan said he could say that it traveled from Elyria to the southeast side of Cleveland via Interstate 90, then back again "hitting" off towers along the interstate on Jan. 31, 2016.

    Ross' phone later could be placed in the general vicinity, though not the exact location, where the Lewises were killed just prior to 10 p.m. that night, Horan testified. The phone was in Elyria from 8:33 that night to 9:45 p.m. just south of Griswold Road.

    The Lewises were found dead in their rental car on Fox Hill Lane near Midway Mall, putting Ross' phone in that general vicinity just before police were called for a report of shots fired and a man fleeing the area. It later was detected heading east along Ford Road in Elyria out to North Olmsted in Cuyahoga County.

    Detectives testified based on their investigation that Ross discarded evidence including the 9 mm murder weapon used in the killings near the old Walmart on Ford Road. The weapon never was recovered.

    According to Elyria police recordings of an interview with Ross, he also said he went to his sister's house in North Olmsted the day of the killings, arriving late that night, and said Nolen would confirm that.

    Nolen's Princeton Avenue address also is farther south than Ross' phone traveled about the time of the murders, Horan said.

    "There are two distinct towers farther north of that location, and the measurements are not reaching down that far to where the address is that you're talking about would be," Horan said in response to a question from Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Laura Dezort.

    For critics who say that cellular data can't be used to pinpoint the locations of cellphones exactly, Horan testified he has spent the last 10 years of his more than 25-year FBI career with the CAST team finding missing persons, kidnapped children and murder victims from Indiana to Pennsylvania to Mexico, helping local police and federal authorities. "The best response to criticism is that the proof is in the pudding. We actually use this stuff and we're not working in a vacuum," he said. "We use this every single day and so does everybody in CAST and law enforcement. It works. It's worked day-in and day-out for years."

    Defense attorneys Michael Camera and Kimberly Kendall Corral will cross-examine Horan today, Rothgery said. Elyria Police Detective Sgt. Robert Whiting also is expected to testify today, and prosecutors may wrap up their case by the end of today's testimony, the judge said.

    (source: The Chronicle-Telegram)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #12
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    Jury gets case in Jocquez Ross murder trial

    By Dave O'Brien
    The Chronicle-Telegram

    ELYRIA — The case against Jocquez Ross in a 2016 double murder in Elyria was given to a Lorain County Common Pleas Court jury Monday afternoon.

    Ross, 29, could receive the death penalty if the jury finds him guilty of aggravated murder. That's one of the many charges he faces in the execution-style shooting deaths of 32-year-old Michael "LuLu" Lewis and his wife, 22-year-old Fannie Thomas Lewis, who were killed in their rental car in an apartment complex near the Midway Mall on Jan. 31, 2016.

    Ross was charged with the murders in early 2017 after his ex-girlfriend, Brooke Nolen, offered Elyria police detectives information that made it possible for them to place Ross in the area of the killings and also explained what might have happened to the murder weapon, Ross' cellphones and his clothing, none of which have ever been found.

    Nolen declined to testify against Ross, but Judge Christopher Rothgery allowed statements she made to police to be used against Ross after finding that Ross improperly tried to stop Nolen from testifying while he was being held in the Lorain County Jail on $2 million bond.

    Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Laura Dezort said prosecutors never alleged that Ross acted alone, but rather "he acted with other people, and he was part of the whole big picture" that included three of his cousins, one of his uncles and several other persons of interest who may still yet face charges.

    "If it wasn't for (Ross') participation in this crime, Fannie Thomas and Michael Lewis might well be alive today," she said. Ross "aided, abetted, encouraged and conspired with others, and that's the reason they are in fact dead today."

    Rothgery had earlier denied a motion by defense attorneys to forbid the jury from considering that Ross might have been part of a larger conspiracy and still find him guilty of the crimes that could send him to death row.

    And while there were no eyewitnesses to the murder of the Lewises, who were known drug dealers, Dezort said there was plenty of circumstantial cellphone evidence and secondhand witness testimony to convict Ross in their killings.

    Both Fannie and Michael Lewis had been shot from behind while seated in the front of a rented Chevrolet Traverse just before 10 p.m. Jan. 31, 2016. Police did not believe robbery was a motive after finding $1,300 in cash, jewelry, cellphones, prescription pills and other valuables in the car with them.

    "None of it is taken," Dezort told the jury. "None of it is disturbed, sitting there as they were."

    The complex did not have video cameras, but a witness described a shorter Black male with jeans, a hoodie, "bushy" hair and green underwear that was exposed as he fell down fleeing the area, just before a newer, dark-colored Ford SUV also left the area.

    Ross and his cousins had access to such a vehicle, and testimony that took place in March before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the trial for five months also put Ross behind the wheel of a similar car whose owner allowed him to use it in exchange for illegal drugs.

    The location was also perfect for a "hit" because it was a place where the victims did not live, were clearly meeting up with someone and it was raining — perfect for washing away fingerprint and DNA evidence, Dezort said.

    Michael Lewis was shot twice in the head and died very soon after. Fannie Lewis was shot twice in the back, with the first shot severing her spinal cord and killing her instantly, Dezort said. Four shell casings were found inside the car, and all four bullets were recovered from the dead at autopsy.

    There was no gun to match the rounds or casings to, but Ross had previously borrowed a gun from his cousin Myesha (Brown) Anderson that she had asked him to return, and he refused, according to testimony in court.

    Anderson and her brothers, Marquel Brown — known as "Pumpkin" or "Drunk" — and Shaundale "Tug" Brown, and their father, Maurice "Brown Dog" Brown, then "came into focus as the possible perpetrators of this crime," Dezort said.

    The Browns had an old 2005 Ford Escape that was found outside Maurice Brown's house on Brace Avenue in Elyria that same night. After Shaundale Brown was caught with 800 grams of cocaine he planned to sell, the Browns had put the word out that Michael Lewis, a rival drug dealer, had "snitched" on them to police and told detectives where to find Shaundale Brown's drugs.

    That's the motive for the killings, Dezort said.

    Marquel and Shaundale Brown currently are serving prison time on state and federal drug charges. No one else has been charged in connection with the murders, as a search of Maurice Brown's home and the seizure and testing of Marquel Brown's clothing turned up no evidence of their involvement in the murders.

    Ross' cellular phone records, however, put him in the area of the murders around the time they occurred, and also in places where Nolen told police he had been — lending truth to her statements, Dezort said, and making her out to be more than an angry ex-girlfriend.

    Ross also called Nolen from jail and sent her many letters that were played or read in court. An FBI agent and Elyria police detectives also testified that his two cellphones were tracked to places Nolen said Ross was that night, which didn't include her Princeton Avenue residence — a story Ross had originally used as an alibi.

    "There's no way Brooke Nolen knows about any of this," and it would be impossible for her statements to police to coordinate with statements by other witnesses unless they are accurate, Dezort said.

    In his closing argument, defense attorney Michael Camera asked the jurors to consider the major reasonable doubt he said exists in the prosecution's case. He said it would be nearly impossible to prove that Ross didn't do something because you "can't prove a negative."

    "That's why the state of Ohio doesn't place the burden on Jocquez Ross," he said. Jurors "must find a person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and if they don't the verdict must be 'not guilty.'"

    Camera said the crime scene provided the first doubt: It would have to be a left-handed person to be capable of shooting Michael Lewis first through the left temple then again through the back of the neck to kill him, based on the bullet trajectory testified to by coroner Dr. Frank Miller.

    He said the man who lent his car to Ross in exchange for drugs was not a reliable witness and even testified the last time he had done so was the fall of 2015, not as late as January 2016.

    Prosecutors and police "have got their little playbook, they want to show you their playbook. 'Forget everything else we don't have,'" Camera said.

    What prosecutors don't have is Ross' DNA, fingerprints, gunshot residue on his clothing or hands, eyewitnesses, a murder weapon or text messages linking Ross to the killings, he said.

    Sure, he said, Ross was by the Midway Mall some of the time of day cellphone records put him there.

    "That's a shocker to me because the man lives in Elyria," Camera told jurors. "It's tunnel-vision by the Elyria Police Department on Jocquez Ross," so prosecutors said "Let's just show the jury Jocquez Ross."

    Marquel Brown hated Michael Lewis, so he has motive, Camera said. But police did not track his cellphone that night. Likewise Caree Cannon, who became an uncooperative witness and refused to answer questions on the witness stand in March, he said, was at a poker game on Revere Lane not far from the murder scene that night.

    The host of the game testified Cannon was "in and out" of her apartment all night and was acting like he was "up to no good," Camera told jurors.

    Police didn't get the phone records of any number of other possible suspects, Camera said, including Terry Lee Jackson Jr., who acted as Michael Lewis' "muscle" on drug deals and may have had a falling-out with him according to testimony in March.

    Meanwhile, Nolen's Section 8 housing status had been threatened by police and prosecutors, she was pregnant with Ross' child and didn't want to have the baby behind bars, Camera said. She had her own motives to get out from under unrelated drug charges and her word was not to be trusted, he said.

    "I again state, the state talked to you about the elements (of the crime)," Camera told jurors. "Quite frankly, we don't give a damn about the elements. The plea is 'not guilty.' He didn't do it. He didn't kill those people. That's our position, period. End this nightmare for Jocquez Ross and return a verdict of 'not guilty.'"

    In a brief rebuttal, Assistant Prosecutor Tony Cillo told the jury that Ross was "right there" at the murder scene, with a phone that called his throwaway "burner" phone that also made contact with Michael Lewis then was disposed of somewhere off Ford Road the night of the murder.

    Ross had contact with Marquel Brown throughout the night after the murder; lied to police about where he was that day; "continued for years to push, prod and manipulate Brooke Nolen into giving him a false alibi"; and saved his drug-dealing cousins money and ingratiated himself to his family by murdering a man they believed was a snitch.

    "We've always said other people are involved," Cillo told jurors. Ross is "just the one they got to do (the murders). He's the one in it up to his eyeballs. … It always came up Jocquez Ross. It's not tunnel-vision, it's an investigation."

    Rothgery ordered the jury into deliberations at 1:50 p.m. Monday. He ended deliberations for the day just after 5 p.m. and ordered jurors sequestered in a hotel overnight.

    Deliberations will resume this morning. If Ross is found guilty of aggravated murder and the accompanying death penalty specifications, jurors will then be asked to consider if he should face the death penalty.

    If jurors issue a finding for death following the penalty phase of the trial, the final decision on imposing the death penalty will be up to Rothgery, who may not impose a death sentence if the jury does not first agree on one.

    https://chroniclet.com/news/232040/j...-murder-trial/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #13
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    Jocquez Ross found guilty on 11 of 13 charges in homicide trial (BREAKING)

    The Chronicle-Telegram

    After a trial that took five months -- with a lengthy break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it took a Lorain County jury a day of deliberations to find Jocquez Ross guilty of a a 2016 double murder.

    The jury returned guilty verdicts 11 of the 13 counts Ross faced in connection with the fatal shootings of Michael and Fannie Lewis in January 2016, including one count of aggravated murder and two counts of murder. Ross was found not guilty on one aggravated murder charge and one charge of tampering with evidence.

    Each of the 11 guilty verdicts carry with them a firearm specification. A jury will now decide Ross' sentence, which could be the death penalty. The penalty phase is scheduled to start Sept. 8.

    https://chroniclet.com/news/232118/j...rial-breaking/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #14
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    Judge reschedules Jocquez Ross sentencing phase to November

    By Dave O'Brien
    The Chronicle-Telegram

    ELYRIA — The sentencing phase of convicted double-murderer Jocquez Ross' trial was continued yet again Monday, though court officials declined to say specifically why.

    Through his bailiff, Rob Bennett, Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Rothgery said a brief journal entry he signed Monday morning spoke for itself.

    "Upon motion of the defendant and for good cause shown, the Mitigation Phase in the instant case is hereby continued to Monday, November 9, 2020, at 8:30 a.m.," the judge wrote in a signed order.

    Prosecutors, defense attorneys and Rothgery's staff declined to address rumors being passed through the halls on the sixth floor of the Lorain County Justice Center on Monday that the trial was continued due to someone involved with the case either testing positive for COVID-19 or having had contact with someone who did.

    A jury found Ross, 29, guilty of aggravated murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence on Aug. 18. He also was found guilty of multiple firearms specifications for using a gun in the commission of a felony and of a specification on the aggravated murder charge that makes him eligible for the death penalty.

    It is the second time the sentencing, or "mitigation," phase has been continued. Defense attorneys Michael Camera and Kimberly Kendall Corral will seek to convince jurors that the mitigating factors outweigh the aggravating factors involved in the crime and ask them to recommend prison and not the death penalty for Ross.

    This phase of the trial was originally scheduled to take place starting Sept. 8, but was then rescheduled to Monday.

    If the trial resumes Nov. 9, it will be the final phase of Ross' trial. The first phase began March 2, was postponed starting March 17 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resumed Aug. 11 and ended Aug. 18.

    Based on evidence gathered during an Elyria Police Department investigation, Assistant Lorain County Prosecutors Laura Dezort and Tony Cillo convinced a jury that Ross shot Michael "LuLu" Lewis, 32, and Fannie Thomas Lewis, 22, to death in their rental car on Fox Hill Lane in Elyria on Jan. 31, 2016. Ross is being held without bond in the Lorain County Jail.

    Jurors must now weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors to be presented by prosecutors and defense attorneys and make a recommendation to the court on Ross' fate. Only a jury can sentence someone to death in Ohio, and Rothgery has final approval on the decision.

    The courthouse had new rules in place for all those entering on Monday: Mandatory touchless temperature checks and a set of questions to determine if the person had a fever, symptoms of COVID-19 or had been in contact with someone with the coronavirus.

    https://chroniclet.com/news/236618/j...e-to-november/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #15
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Jocquez Ross sentenced in 2016 Elyria double-homicide

    By Kevin Martin
    The Morning Journal

    Convicted double-murderer Jocquez Ross will spend at least the next 43 years in prison after being sentenced Nov. 10 in Lorain County Common Pleas Court.

    Ross, 33, was sentenced by Lorain County Common Pleas Court Judge Christopher Rothgery for aggravated murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence.

    Ross was convicted by a Lorain County jury in August in the 2016 shooting deaths of Michael Lewis, 32, and Fannie Thomas Lewis, 22.

    He was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences, 25 years to life with the gun specification, and a second sentence of 15 years to life.

    Lorain County Assistant Prosecutor Laura Dezort told the court Ross’ "cold and calculated" crimes were deserving of maximum consecutive sentences.

    “Two people were executed on January 31st 2016. Michael (Lewis) took two shots to the head; Fannie (Lewis) took two to the back. It was cold, it was calculated. It was plotted, planned, orchestrated and carried out by this defendant (Ross)," said Dezort.

    Dezort stressed the prosecution’s belief that Ross was the shooter and stated he presented all the signs of anti-social personality disorder, reflecting on his past criminal history dating back to his youth. She said he deserved the maximum sentence, adding that crime, guns and breaking the law has been his way of life.

    Ross’ defense team asked for the minimum sentence, arguing he played a limited role in the shooting, and pointing to mitigating factors stemming from adverse childhood experiences and mental health issues.

    Dezort strongly rejected these claims for a more lenient sentence in no uncertain terms.

    “The danger he poses to this community is beyond description,” she said.

    Five members of the victims' families addressed the court with impact statements via video conference.

    Alana Thomas, the daughter of Michael Lewis, said he was an amazing father who was taken too soon and was looking forward to him being there when she graduated next year. While not biologically related, Thomas said Lewis stepped up when she needed him and play that role.

    Michael Lewis’ mother Loretta Lewis addressed Ross directly, praying for mercy on his soul, but said she didn’t believe in an eye for an eye.

    In addressing the court before sentencing, Ross maintained his innocence, pushing back against the prosecution’s characterizations, stating his hope that the true story can one day be revealed.

    “I'm being depicted as someone who isn't perfect, which I'm not. I may have been a drug dealer. I may have been a (expletive) boyfriend. I may have been a lot of things,” Ross said. "But from the beginning, I've maintained the fact that I have not killed no one. And if I would’ve known that Lulu (Michael Lewis) would’ve been killed that night I would have intervened if that was possible.”

    He added criticisms of the court for not fully examining the relationship between himself and Michael Lewis, who he said was like a brother to him.

    Ross expressed that while he can’t change what happened, he has sympathy for the victims and hopes to one day earn their forgiveness.

    “I hope that if the truth behind what really happens ends up coming out, whenever it does, that you all will be able to forgive me for the blame (that) has been cast on me,” Ross said.

    The victims were found dead in a rented SUV on Fox Hill Lane in Elyria in what prosecutors characterized as a "hit" in retribution for connection with a drug transaction.

    In an agreement between prosecutors and Ross’ defense team, the death penalty was taken off the table after specifications attached to the aggravated murder conviction were dismissed.

    https://www.morningjournal.com/news/...857dced98.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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