Columbus woman convicted of helping plan fatal February 2022 robbery, shooting sentenced

A woman who drove a teenager to a February 2022 meeting with a man that ended with the man being fatally shot learned her fate Thursday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

Dashay Avery, 25, had previously pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery. On Thursday, Judge Kimberly Cocroft ordered Avery to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of 25½ years.

Avery had been arrested in March 2022 after text messages between herself and Harrison Finklea, who was 17 at the time, showed she had driven Finklea to a motel on the 1000 block of East Dublin Granville Road on the Northeast Side around midnight on Feb. 3, 2022.

Finklea got into a vehicle with 42-year-old Jonathan Reddy, of North Linden, prosecutors said, and got into a altercation that ended with Reddy being shot in his own vehicle by Finklea.

Avery initially told Columbus police that she knew of the meeting between Finklea and Reddy, but denied knowing Finklea intended to rob or shoot Reddy. However, court records say text messages between Avery and Finklea included references to a robbery and a details of where Avery intended to park so that Finklea could run to her vehicle after the shooting.

Prior to being sentenced, Avery said in court that "hopefully the truth will come out" and that Reddy's family will realize she didn't have anything to do with his death.

Cocroft disagreed with Avery's assertion, saying she believed that Avery knew the guilty plea and sentence were the "appropriate conclusions."

"You will have the opportunity to experience daylight and sunshine outside an institution," Cocroft said. "Mr. Reddy will never have that experience again."

Finklea had initially been charged in Franklin County Juvenile Court, but his case was transferred to Franklin County Common Pleas Court for trial as an adult. In December, Judge Michael Holbrook sentenced Finklea to a minimum of 25 years in prison and maximum of 30 years in prison after he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery.

bbruner@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus woman convicted of helping plan fatal February 2022 robbery, shooting sentenced