Background
Reyzhon A. Domingo entered the apartment of his former girlfriend, S.R., through a closed but unlocked door after she had ended their relationship and told him to leave her alone. According to S.R. and her adult son, D.V., Domingo entered with a firearm, pointed it at D.V.’s head, threatened to shoot him, and demanded his cellphone. Police arrested Domingo outside the apartment and recovered D.V.’s phone from his pants pocket and a loaded Glock 19 from his jacket.
A jury convicted Domingo of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and disrupting public services, each with a three-year firearm specification. The trial court imposed concurrent sentences for the underlying offenses, consecutive three-year terms for the firearm specifications attached to the aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery counts, and a concurrent term for the third specification. Domingo appealed, challenging the denial of his speedy-trial motion, the sufficiency and manifest weight of the evidence, and the consecutive firearm-specification terms.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District affirmed the denial of Domingo’s speedy-trial motion. Because Domingo requested a pretrial conference at arraignment, the 14 days between the request and the conference were tolled, leaving 78 chargeable days under Ohio’s 90-day triple-count rule when he moved to dismiss. The court also explained that, even without that tolling, Ohio law provided a 14-day period in which to bring him to trial after his motion, and his counsel’s simultaneous motion to withdraw caused additional tolling.
The court held that sufficient evidence supported all three convictions and the firearm specifications. Opening the closed but unlocked door supplied the force required for aggravated burglary, and the testimony that S.R. had ended the relationship, told Domingo to leave her alone, and had not invited him supported the finding that he lacked privilege to enter. Testimony that Domingo pointed a gun at D.V., threatened him, demanded his phone, and left with it supported aggravated robbery. Taking the phone while armed and looking for S.R. also permitted the jury to find that Domingo purposely impaired D.V.’s ability to make an emergency call, supporting the disrupting-public-services conviction.
The convictions were not against the manifest weight of the evidence because the jury was entitled to credit S.R. and D.V. over Domingo, whose account conflicted with theirs and whose credibility was undermined by admitted lies and his request that S.R. give the State a story that could help him leave jail. The consecutive firearm-specification terms were also lawful: because aggravated robbery was among the offenses and Domingo was convicted of qualifying specifications connected to multiple felonies, Ohio law required terms for the two most serious specifications and required those mandatory terms to run consecutively.
Key Takeaways
- A defendant’s request for a pretrial conference tolls Ohio speedy-trial time for a facially reasonable period between the request and the conference, even when a local rule otherwise calls for scheduling a pretrial.
- Opening a closed but unlocked door constitutes sufficient force for aggravated burglary under Ohio law.
- When the statutory conditions governing multiple firearm specifications are met, the court must impose terms for the two most serious specifications and run the mandatory terms consecutively.
Why It Matters
The decision applies the Second District’s speedy-trial precedent to a defendant-requested pretrial and emphasizes that Ohio’s dismissal procedure includes a 14-day trial period after a timely motion rather than automatic discharge upon expiration of the ordinary deadline.
It also illustrates how witness testimony and circumstantial evidence can establish unlawful entry, intent to steal, and purposeful interference with emergency communications, while confirming that Ohio’s multiple-firearm-specification rules may require consecutive enhancements arising from a single criminal episode.