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Felon sentenced to 9 years in jail for trying to kill again
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Casimiro Ellis
YOUNGSTOWN
A man convicted in a homicide a decade ago has been sentenced to nine years in prison for trying to kill someone else last April.
Casimiro Ellis, 29, of East Avondale Avenue, drew the nine-year prison term Wednesday from Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Ellis drew the sentence after he pleaded guilty to attempted murder with a firearm specification and to being a felon in illegal possession of a gun in the shooting of Alynn S. Grant, 32, of Liberty Road.
“You had no business having a gun,” Judge D’Apolito told Ellis. “The only lucky thing is that the man didn’t die.”
Grant told police he pulled into a driveway in the 6500 block of Mill Creek Boulevard in Boardman and saw Ellis walking toward him with a gun. Ellis then shot Grant once in the leg and four times in the back.
Ellis was released from prison in 2009 after having been convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2000 shooting death of Karl Green.
Ellis was arrested in Warren a week after he shot Grant.
Police said the shooting was related to a woman who shared the Boardman residence with Grant.
She and Grant had a relationship, but it was ending, and she was in a relationship with Ellis when the shooting occurred, police said.
While investigating the April 14, 2010, shooting, police found drugs and cash inside Grant’s home and car.
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, also of common pleas court, put Grant on five years’ probation last month after Grant pleaded no contest to a marijuana trafficking charge and the prosecution dropped a cocaine trafficking charge.
Saying Ellis was remorseful and had accepted responsibility for his actions, Ellis’ lawyer, John Dixon, asked the judge to sentence Ellis to less than the 10 years in prison recommended by Rebecca Doherty, an assistant county prosecutor.
Ellis apologized for last year’s shooting and asked Judge D’Apolito to be merciful in sentencing him.
Grant, who walks with a cane, called the shooting a cowardly act and said of his recovery from the shooting, “It took a year from my life.”
Grant added he will undergo bone-grafting surgery on his leg Tuesday, and that he will eventually need another surgery to remove a bullet lodged near his spine.
Ellis will be on parole for five years after he leaves prison.