Drayvonte Godsey enters an Allen County courtroom Tuesday afternoon after jurors reached verdicts on three of five charges against the Lima man.
J Swygart | The Lima News
LIMA — Jurors in the trial Drayvonte Godsey, the Lima man charged with physically attacking the mother of his 1-year-old son and stealing two firearms from her home, deliberated for four hours Tuesday before finding the defendant guilty of three of five charges against him.
Jurors were deadlocked and a mistrial was declared on two remaining counts involving the alleged theft of firearms. Allen County Common Pleas Court Judge Terri Kohlrieser gave prosecutors 14 days to decide if they will retry Godsey, 29, on the two third-degree counts of grand theft when the property is a firearm of dangerous ordnance.
In addition to the counts upon which jurors could not agree, Godsey was indicted in February 2021 on charges of robbery, a second-degree felony; one count of having weapons under disability, a felony of the third degree; and one count of domestic violence, a first-degree misdemeanor.
The domestic violence and robbery charges stemmed from an incident on Jan. 1, 2021, when prosecutors said Godsey assaulted Dequaisha Wilson in her home on Chestnut Court in Lima and stole her phone to keep her from calling police.
Jurors convicted Godsey on the weapons under disability count based on a felony previous conviction that disqualifies him from legally possessing a firearm. Godsey is currently serving an 18-month prison term for the possession of heroin, possession of cocaine and aggravated possession of drugs.
According to court documents, Wilson told police she was arguing with Godsey on the phone on New Year’s Day when Godsey decided to come to her residence to see their son. Wilson was sitting on the stairs to the home when he arrived, she told police, and Godsey dragged her down the steps, punched her in the face several times and stole her phone before leaving the residence.
She had told police following the incident that Godsey also had stolen two handguns from her residence.
Wilson, who eluded law enforcement for months before being apprehended last week in Memphis, Tennessee, reluctantly took the witness stand on the trial’s opening day and offered a version of events that differed from the one she told police the day after her attack. She testified she had inadvertently given a storage container to Godsey that contained the guns in question.
In her closing statement to jurors, Assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Mariah Cunningham admitted that Wilson “didn’t want to be here yesterday” to testify but said inconsistencies in her testimony were “minimal in the grand scheme of things” and did not alter the basic facts of the case.
Defense attorney Carroll Creighton of the Allen County Public Defenders Office disagreed, saying the differences in stories told by Wilson “are absolutely facts of consequences. It matters how he (Godsey) gained control of the guns — if he took them or was given them.”
That logic caused at least one juror to balk at a conviction on the theft charges.
No sentencing date was set for Godsey.
