The Akron Legal News

Murderer who ordered robbery loses appeal

ANNE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: March 12, 2014

A panel of judges in the 9th District Court of Appeals recently affirmed the judgment of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas which found Alan Lollis guilty of aggravated murder, murder and two counts of aggravated robbery all with gun specifications.

Lollis was indicted with another man, Gevonte Hunter, when it was determined that the two planned to rob and kill Salim Suleiman, who was found fatally shot outside of a carryout in Akron on July 19, 2011.

Lollis was sentenced to 33 years to life in prison and appealed, arguing that his convictions were against the sufficiency and manifest weight of the evidence.

The court of appeals disagreed after reviewing the testimony and evidence presented at Lollis’ trial.

According to trial records, police found Suleiman laying in the carryout parking lot with an entry wound to his chest. He was next to a green car and both front doors were open.

The security cameras at the carryout were broken so investigating officers had no footage to consult.

However, they did find two shell casings, a cell phone, blood and a spent bullet.

Hunter’s aunt, Lashawna Boswell, testified that she was visiting her cousin when she saw Hunter dropped off near the carryout on the day of the shooting.

After about a minute, she heard gunshots and ran outside where she saw someone lying on the ground outside of the store.

She ran over and began administering CPR until police arrived.

Suleiman’s brother testified that his brother drove the green car that was near the body.

Det. Guy Sheffield of the police department’s computer forensics unit examined two cell phones found at the scene.

He testified that he copied screen shots of certain text messages sent and received by Suleiman on the day of the shooting.

He had been texting a man with a 480 area code who was identified as “Young Homie” in his contacts.

A transcript of the text messages revealed that the two eventually agreed to meet at the carryout in order to conduct a marijuana sale.

Each of the text messages from Young Homie ended with the signature “$tackOr$tarve.”

Police also recovered a Nokia cell phone in Suleiman’s car, which they eventually determined was registered to Hunter’s mother.

They later found that Hunter was the user of that phone.

Sheffield testified as to several text messages sent between the Nokia phone and a contact in the phone named “Bezz,” whose phone number was listed as the same 480 number belonging to Young Homie on Suleiman’s phone.

Shortly before the shooting, Hunter received a text from Bezz stating, “Wat up he on his way ... tare em up just hit me up wen u done.”

Hunter asked “what kind of car?” and Bezz replied, “Lil kia mazda look like its green and were sun glasses and long hair arab lite skin.”

After the shooting, Bezz sent a few more texts saying “man u good” and ordering Hunter to “get to tha east side.” All of his text messages were signed with “$tackOr$tarve.”

Tasha Thomas testified that Lollis was staying at her house over the summer of 2011.

One day, Lollis told Thomas about a “robbery gone bad” at the local carryout.

He informed her that he had set up a robbery targeting “some Arab” and that he was “texting some dude telling him what the dude in the car had on, what kind of car he was driving.”

Thomas told the court that she knew Lollis by his nickname, Bezel.

She also stated that she had shown detectives the number for Alan Lollis that she had saved in her phone and it matched that of Young Homie and Bezz.

All text messages from Lollis were signed with “stack and starve” according to Thomas and she provided the police with Lollis’ driver’s license, which he had left at her house.

Recorded phone calls that Lollis made while awaiting trial in jail were admitted as evidence.

In them, he tells people on the other line to get “as many people as possible” to come to court and testify that he was Alan Lollis, not Bezel.

In other calls, women answered the phone and addressed Lollis as Bezel but he did not correct them.

Lollis used other inmates’ identification numbers to make calls inquiring about Thomas, asking if anyone ever got in touch with her and stating, “I need someone to pull her tight on that — that’s on my paperwork, to see what’s going on with that b----.”

Later, he remarked in a phone call that things were “looking real good” as long as “that broad’s out of the way.”

A letter that Lollis wrote to his girlfriend was also presented during trial.

In it, Lollis instructed her on what to say in court and to asked her to tell him what she said to police “so (he) can know what to say.”

“Don’t want to get up there and we all look n dum,” wrote Lollis. “Tasha lite weight (messed) me over with my ID being at her house they got that to go so make sure she aint coming to court and ask her what she told them.”

Despite the amount of evidence presented by the state, Lollis maintained that it was not sufficient to sustain a conviction.

“We conclude that the text messages provide sufficient evidence of a common plan between Mr. Lollis and Mr. Hunter to violently rob Mr. Suleiman,” wrote Presiding Judge Carla Moore on behalf of the court of appeals. “The evidence was also sufficient for the jury reasonably to infer that Mr. Lollis had knowledge that Mr. Hunter would be using a weapon or engaging in violence of a type reasonably likely to produce death, as he instructed Mr. Hunter to ‘tare em up.’”

Hunter contended that the meaning of “tare em up” could have had an alternate meaning.

He cited Black’s Law Dictionary which defines “tare” as a term used in reference to the weight of a commodity without its container or packaging.

“Mr. Lollis maintains that ‘tare em up’ may have been a phrase used in reference to the weight of usable marijuana,” wrote Judge Moore. “However, nothing in the record indicates that Mr. Lollis was utilizing a formal definition of ‘tare,’ and he makes no argument as to what the remaining ‘em up’ would have referenced if he were using ‘tare’ in this manner.”

The appellate panel went on to overrule the remainder of Lollis’ assignments of error including arguments that Thomas was an unreliable witness and that his convictions were void because he was merely an accomplice.

Judges Beth Whitmore and Donna Carr concurred to form the majority and affirm the judgment of the Summit County court.

The case is cited State v. Lollis, 2014-Ohio-684.

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