Man testifies to arranging fatal robbery

6/11/2014

One of two Toledo men who admitted planning a deadly robbery then finding someone else to carry it out testified Tuesday on the first day of the aggravated murder trial of Deitrekk Boone, who prosecutors allege shot and robbed the wrong target.

Matthew Managhan, 36, admitted on the stand that he didn’t know Boone, but told Lucas County Common Pleas Judge James Bates that he and Chad Brown enlisted Boone’s housemate, Jason Kuhns, to rob “an older chubby guy carrying a bag” that was supposed to contain “weed and money.”

Instead, prosecutors allege, Kuhns and two friends he recruited to help him pull off the robbery — Boone and Devonte Harris — ambushed Joseph Lengel, 57, owner of CrossFit Intensity Gym on Warehouse Road about 5:45 a.m. Nov. 19, 2012, shooting him to death and taking his iPad from the bag he carried before speeding off in a white pickup truck.

“They attacked the wrong man, and they killed him,” Charles McDonald, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor, said during opening statements. “The intended target owned the shop next door to Joe Lengel’s gym — right next door. Joe Lengel died because Deitrekk Boone attacked the wrong man.”

Boone, 21, of 1416 Beecham St., who waived a jury, is charged with aggravated murder and aggravated robbery as well as two firearms specifications. He fled Toledo after his indictment, eluding police until he was arrested in Houston in December.

In the year Boone was away, Managhan and Brown each pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery and were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Harris was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 25 years for aggravated murder, while Kuhns is serving a life sentence with parole eligibility after 15 years for murder.

Mr. McDonald told the court three shots were fired at Mr. Lengel that morning — two from a 38-caliber handgun, which missed him, and one from a shotgun, which struck him in the chest at point-blank range. Surveillance video would show the whole thing happened very quickly, he said.

“From the time Mr. Lengel got out of his car to the time the pickup speeds off is less than a minute,” he said. “Joe never had a chance.”

Robert Schoonmaker testified that he arrived at the gym for a workout just before 6 a.m. and found Mr. Lengel’s body outside the gym door. While he called 911, he said, another gym member arrived, turned the body over, and attempted to resuscitate him.

Kiarah Brown, who said she was Boone’s girlfriend in November, 2012, said she didn’t know where Boone was that morning, couldn’t reach him or Harris, and was worried. Under questioning by Mr. McDonald, she said Boone called her from the Lucas County jail a month ago and told her to say he was home with her that morning.

Asked what she told him, she said, “I said, ‘No. I’m not going to do it.’ ”

Managhan’s girlfriend at the time, Miara McMillian, testified that Boone, Harris, and Kuhns returned to the Beecham Street house that morning — loud, excited, and nervous. She said she overheard “an uproar” in the hall and words to the effect that the wrong person was robbed and someone accidentally got hurt.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Drew Griffith, she said she did not recall telling police that she hadn’t heard about a murder, but he played a portion of her interview with detectives in which she said, “I never heard about a murder, I promise.”

Mr. Griffith said in his opening statements that the case against Boone is based largely on the testimony of convicted felons, drug users, and other unreliable witnesses who have lied and changed their stories.

The trial is to resume at 9 a.m. today.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.