Tobias Coleman was convicted of shooting another man in the head and ordered to spend 15 years in prison for his role in a 2014 Oktibbeha County nightclub shooting.
Jurors brought back a guilty verdict in Coleman’s aggravated assault case Wednesday after about five hours of deliberation.
He was sentenced to 20 years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections — five years of the sentence were suspended.
Five people were injured in a March 2014 shooting at Club Rock, located on Rock Hill Road in outlying Oktibbeha County. The then-21-year-old Coleman was arrested six months later in Memphis, Tennessee, by U.S. Marshals.
Although multiple people were injured in the incident, the aggravated assault case before Judge Jim Kitchens this week stemmed from the shooting of then-18-year-old Zacharias Blanchard, who was struck in the head by a bullet.
In a victim’s impact statement, Blanchard wrote the shooting “has literally taken my normal life” and he has “no normalcy anymore” because of the lingering effects of his injury.
The prosecution was handled by the Mississippi Office of the Attorney General’s Public Integrity Division after the district attorney’s office was recused last year because of a conflict.
Monroe pleads not guilty to sexual battery
A Starkville man alleged in a 2016 rape was indicted on one count of sexual battery by an Oktibbeha County grand jury this month.
Mark Monroe, 30, entered a not guilty plea in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court Monday after he was previously charged in connection to a mid-September incident, which occurred on McKee Street.
His bond was set at $10,000, and a trial was scheduled for May 1.
Monroe previously turned himself in to Starkville police officers in October after a Starkville Municipal Court affidavit alleged he forced sexual intercourse on someone he knew.
Other pleadings, indictments
Oktibbeha County Circuit Court has also hosted a number of other cases this month involving assaults, attacks or other injurious actions this term.
Anthony Nicastro, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated assault on Jan. 26. He was indicted this term for conspiring with at least one other person to “fire a deadly weapon into the dwelling of a house,” according to court records.
He was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $500 fine. That sentence will begin after he completes a two-year sentence he was given for pleading guilty to an attempted arson charge stemming from 2014.
In 2015, Nicastro was indicted for aggravated assault, attempted arson and attempted murder stemming from an incident in which two people were shot and a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a home in the previous year.
Court records show the previous aggravated assault and attempted murder charges were retired based upon Nicastro’s guilty plea on the attempted arson charge.
Records also show Derrick Young, 23, was also indicted on the same three charges stemming from the 2014 incident, two counts of selling or transferring of cocaine and one count of transferring marijuana.
Last year, Young pleaded guilty to one count of selling cocaine and two counts of aggravated assault — the attempted murder charge was amended. The remaining charges were retired.
He was sentenced to 19 years, with five years suspended, for each aggravated assault charge and given a four-year sentence, with all four years suspended, for the cocaine charge.
Natalia Carter, 30, was sentenced to two years of non-adjudicated probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine and $1,195.45 in restitution after pleading guilty to a mayhem charge on Jan. 24.
Carter was accused of stabbing a man with a box cutter in 2013.
She was originally indicted on one count of aggravated assault that same year.
Treanna Jefferson, 20, was indicted on one count of aggravated assault earlier this month for allegedly cutting a man’s face with a knife last year.
She pleaded not guilty on Jan. 25, and her bond was set at $10,000.
Jefferson’s trial is scheduled for May 1.
Charles Douglas, 54, was served with an indictment last week for a 2016 incident in which he allegedly struck another man in the head and body with a 2×4 that had nails sticking out of the wood.
Douglas pleaded not guilty Friday and posted a $20,000 bond that same day.
His trial is scheduled on May 1. If convicted, he faces one to 20 years in prison.
Jaleen Jenkins, 22, was served with an indictment on Jan. 24 for one count of aggravated driving under the influence.
Jenkins is accused of driving into a Mississippi State University student as she attempted to walk across Blackjack Road, near Helix Apartments, in November.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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