Tarockis Greer appeared in Allen County Common Pleas Court with attorney Tom Lucente on Tuesday morning.
Jessica ORozco | The Lima News
LIMA — A Lima man found guilty by a jury of robbing and assaulting two people in 2021 was sentenced to 26 years in prison on Tuesday morning.
Tarockis Greer, 31, was sentenced on aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery — first degree felonies — and two counts of second-degree felonious assault. The charges carry firearm specifications, for which Greer received six years of mandatory prison.
According to testimony during the trial, Greer entered Jodi Troy’s home on Wayne Street with Durand Tyson, his co-defendant, and when Tyson and Troy were in the basement, he went upstairs to where Jason High was sleeping and assaulted him and stole money and his phone. High said that Greer shot at him as he was leaving.
Lima Police Department Detective Steve Stechschulte said the bullet hole and its end location in the wall of the neighbor’s house across the street corroborated this. He said it appeared that the gun was fired at about chest height.
According to testimony, after Greer assaulted and robbed High, he went downstairs and encountered Troy, who came up from the basement to see what was going on. According to police body camera footage, Troy said Greer stuck the gun against Troy’s back and she cowered on the floor.
Troy said in the video Greer hit her and shot at the living room floor before stealing money and her phone. Tyson testified Tuesday that Greer convinced him to leave with him and the two drove off in a white van.
Greer testified Wednesday in his defense that he has never entered Troy’s home and that he’s never met any of its occupants. He denied any involvement in the robbery and said he waited in his car while Tyson and another man committed the robbery, which he said he was unaware was happening.
Greer said in a wire recording by Dwayne Wilson-Smith that he “did the robbery” and hit the two occupants of the home with a gun and tossed their cell phones into a river. But Greer said in his testimony that he was simply “talking mess,” using what he learned “through the grapevine.”
On Tuesday, Assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Everhart said it was clear Greer was “proud of what he did” on the wire recording. He said in a written statement that Troy called the incident “a very traumatic experience” which has greatly affected her.
Everhart said Greer showed a “complete disregard for the safety of this community” by firing the gun, especially since a bullet traveled to the home across the street and became lodged in the wall.
Greer said Tuesday that the prosecution does not put enough weight into the details that can be learned “through the grapevine” if one speaks with the right person. He said he is innocent.
“Just because I was found guilty by a jury doesn’t mean I’m guilty,” Greer said. “… My heart goes out to the victims of this case.”
Allen County Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Reed said the case speaks to a drugs and gun culture in Allen County and that Greer is its current “poster child.”
Reed ordered Greer to have no contact or communication with High, who is serving time in prison on a drug crime. He will lose the right to own or possess a firearm and will receive almost a year and a half of jail time credit.
“You’re lucky, I suppose, that someone wasn’t killed,” Reed told Greer.
