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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2011 > June > 07 > Entry
Man sentenced to prison for Jefferson Twp. double murder
DAYTON - Gregory Leet, convicted of murdering two men who offered to help him get his money back after a drug rip-off, was sentenced to 38 years to life in prison Tuesday after a judge said the slayings were “so racially motivated.”
Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman told Leet that she was making all of his sentences consecutive. Had the sentences been concurrent, Leet could have been eligible for parole after 18 years.
Leet, 29, of Jefferson Twp., is white. The two victims, Nathan E. Gay and Harvey Sims Jr., were black. So was the man who ripped Leet off, and another man that Leet beat up after his money was stolen.
“I’ll be back in two years because I’m innocent,” Leet told Huffman, promising he would be out of prison within five years.
“I am absolutely shocked and appalled by your statement today,” Huffman responded. “You don’t seem to care about any human life but your own.”
A jury convicted Leet on May 27 of two counts of purposeful murder, two counts of felony murder, four counts of felonious assault and one count of tampering with evidence. The jury found him not guilty on one count of aggravated robbery.
The bodies of Gay and Sims were found Feb. 26, 2010 along a bank of Bear Creek in Jefferson Twp. Prosecution witnesses Tylor Blevins and Kenneth Bailey testified that they saw Leet kill the two men. The defense claimed Bailey was the real killer, and that Blevins, Bailey’s cousin, was helping frame Leet.
Blevins, 19, testified that he, another witness and Leet had left Hammerjax nightclub, 111 E. Fourth St., when Leet approached a man to purchase cocaine. That man, Abdul Jihad, testified he took Leet into the Wilkinson Apartments on West Fifth Street, took Leet’s money then ran off. While the three were looking for Jihad, Blevins attacked a man who was walking up the street.
Blevins said that Gay, 49, and Sims, 54, then approached and told Leet Jihad’s name.
Leet offered them each $100 to find the man, but said he’d have to go to his house in Jefferson Twp., according to witness testimony.
Witnesses said the victims got in Leet’s SUV, and the five men drove to Leet’s house. After stopping at the house, Leet drove to an area near 2701 Germantown-Liberty Road, according to trial testimony. Leet and the two victims got out of the vehicle, and Leet fired several shots, according to witness testimony. Blevins said he heard one of the men begging for his life.
“Neither of them deserved to die,” Blevins said during the trial.
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