CINCINNATI — A teenager who was charged with the murders of four people when he was 14 years old will now spend over 30 years in prison.
Mikeem Thomas, 17, was sentenced to 31 to 36 1/2 years in prison on Monday; Thomas changed his plea during his final pre-trial hearing.
WCPO is still working to learn which charges Thomas pleaded guilty to, but he faced multiple counts of murder and felonious assault.
Thomas was charged along with three others in 2021 for a series of murders that happened between January and February of that year.
Prosecutors have alleged Thomas committed violent crimes as an "audition" for getting paid to kill people.
Carl Godfrey, whom prosecutors said was the ringleader of the murder-for-hire plots, was sentenced in February to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The other two defendants, Jason Gray and Mario Gordon accused of taking part in the plot took plea deals in exchange for the prosecution dropping some of the charges they'd faced. Gordon testified against Godfrey during his trial.
Assistant prosecutor Linda Scott said Thomas shot and killed Terrance North as an "audition" for getting paid to kill people. On Feb. 1, 2021, prosecutors said Thomas lured a man to a location, then shot and wounded him and shot and killed North.
Scott said after that shooting, Thomas participated with adult co-defendants in two alleged contract killings later that month.
On Feb. 16, 2021, Godfrey sent Gray, Gordon and Thomas to complete a second killing for which he had been contracted, according to the indictment. The trio, driven by 49-year-old Connor Inabnitt, spotted the target inside a vehicle with passengers and opened fire, according to prosecutors.
Investigators said the target survived. Deontay Otis, one of the vehicle’s other occupants, died on the scene, court records show.
Otis' girlfriend, who was with him at the time of the shooting, described in court the moment they were ambushed during Godfrey's trial. She said Otis was driving and she was in the passenger seat when multiple shots were fired at their car.
"He starts saying, he starts saying 'I'm hit, I'm shot, I'm dead,'" said Maliaya Freeman, who was also shot.
The intended target, prosecutors said, was sitting in the backseat behind Otis. Before the shooting, Freeman said the intended target was on the phone with someone she knew as "C.J." for several minutes. She identified "C.J." as Godfrey.
The final shooting occurred two days later, according to prosecutors, when Godfrey and the boy “armed themselves and entered Millvale” in retaliation for another incident. Prosecutors said they shot and killed Donnell Steele.
"Donnell Steele was standing in the middle of the street near his car when the bullets hit him directly in the head," said Allison Oswall, assistant Hamilton County prosecuting attorney. "He fell face first to the ground — a fact that someone would only know if they were there when it happened, a fact that Godfrey was bragging about on his cell phone moments after Mr. Steele was murdered."
In 2023, Judge Kari Bloom determined Thomas would be tried as an adult for his part in the murders.
Watch Live:
