Before bringing just less than 100 potential jurors into the courtroom, Judge Greg Stephens put on the record that there had been no plea offer from prosecution offered to Grevious.
Grevious, 25, of Hamilton, is charged with felonious assault, having weapons under disability and aggravated murder.
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INITIAL REPORT, April 16:
A trial is scheduled to begin today for a Hamilton man who is the last of eight defendants charged in two deadly incidents in the summer of 2016.
Michael Grevious II, 25, is facing the death penalty if found guilty of aggravated murder for a retaliation shooting that followed a shoot out at the former Doubles Bar in Hamilton’s West Side. He is charged with felonious assault for that incident.
The trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection in Butler County Common Pleas Judge Greg Stephen’s courtroom.
According to court records, Grevious was part of of the violence at Doubles, standing on a pool table inside the bar and opening fire, along with others.
In the end, Kalif Goens, who did not have a gun, was dead and his brother, Mondale Goens, was facing two felonious assault charges in the shooting of Katrina Price and Jariaus Gilbert.
Cornell McKennelly II shot and killed Kalif Goens, according to Butler County prosecutors.
During the same shootout, three other people shot and wounded members of the Gilbert family, according to court documents that said: Rodrick Curtis Jr. shot and wounded Tavaris Gilbert; Cory Cook II shot and wounded Orlando Gilbert, who was killed days later in the Central Avenue drive-by shooting.
After the Doubles Bar shooting, Grevious recruited Zachary Harris to kill Orlando Gilbert for $5,000, according to prosecutors.
Harris and two ex-convicts, Tony Patete and Melinda Gibby, drove about 90 miles from Fairfield County, Ohio, to Butler County and spent several days driving around Hamilton in search of their target, investigators alleged.
Then on Aug. 3, a Chevrolet pickup truck driven by Gibby pulled up next to a black Ford Mustang occupied by Orlando Gilbert and Todd Berus. Patete, the front seat passenger of the truck, opened fire with an AK-47 multiple times, killing Gilbert and Berus, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said that Harris orchestrated the drive-by shooting from the backseat of the pickup truck.
In October, Harris pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated murder, just minutes before his two-week trial was scheduled to being and was given two life sentences.
In December Patete pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gibby pleaded guilty to aggravated murder with an agreed to sentence of 30 years to life. She will not be formally sentenced until after Grevious’ trial, where she has agreed to testify.
The four other men involved in the gun violence at Doubles have already been sentenced to prison.
Cory Cook II, 23, of 9th Street in Hamilton, pleaded guilty to attempted felonious assault. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
Rodrick Curtis Jr., 20, of North 7th Street, accepted a plea deal to aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison.
Mondale Goens, 21, of Maple Ave., pleaded guilty to aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison.
Cornell McKennelly II , 38, of Franklin Street in Hamilton, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter with a gun specification and having weapons under disability for shooting and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
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