A 19-year old Baltimore County man whose attorney said he was merely "along for the ride" last year when the robbery of a Howard County drug dealer led to murder was sentenced Friday to 43 years in prison.
Daymar Wimbish of Owings Mills did not plan the robbery of Elijah Jackson in the parking lot of a Columbia apartment complex in May 2008 and didn't pull the trigger when one of Jackson's friends, Jason Batts, was shot to death as he tried to flee his sport utility vehicle.
But Wimbish, convicted by a jury in Howard County Circuit Court in May, was sentenced by Judge Lenore Gelfman to 14 years on each of the two attempted robbery charges and five years each for three gun possession charges. He was found not guilty on a first-degree murder charge.
Prosecutors had asked for 20 years on each of the attempted robbery charges. The sentencing guidelines range between nine and 14 years. Gelfman did not exceed the guidelines, but she made all the sentences run consecutively. It means that Wimbish won't be eligible for parole until serving at least half of his sentences for robbery.
"I was certainly expecting a significant sentence. I was disappointed in the fact that they will run consecutively," said Spencer Hecht, Wimbish's attorney.
Gelfman rejected Hecht's request to have Wimbish start his sentence in a program for youthful offenders at the Patuxent Institution. Wimbish, who was briefly moved to the Supermax prison in Baltimore after more than a dozen infractions at the Howard County Detention Center, apologized to Batts' family in court.
Wimbish will also have to serve more than nine years for violating his probation on a manslaughter charge stemming from an incident in which he helped set a fire in the stairwell of a Baltimore apartment house where a man died. Hecht said it was during Wimbish's eight-month incarceration in Baltimore on that charge at 16 that he became a member of the Bloods gang.
Wimbish's term in the Batts' murder is 13 years more than that of Ronald McConnell, the Columbia man who prosecutors said masterminded the robbery. Hecht said his client will likely appeal the consecutive gun sentences. Lamont Johnson, who police say shot Batts with a sawed-off shotgun, is expected to be tried later this year.
