CLEVELAND, Ohio— Three men admitted Friday to carrying out two carjackings-- including one of a rabbi-- and an attempted carjacking in Northeast Ohio in a two-hour span.
Donteze Congress and Thomas D. Williams, both 18 of Maple Heights, and Kenneth Franklin, 19, of Akron, all pleaded guilty during a virtual hearings in front of U.S. District Judge James Gwin to multiple counts of carjacking, aiding and abetting a violence crime and possessing a gun during a violent crime.
Each agreed to a 15-year prison sentence, according to their plea agreements. Gwin set sentencing hearings for May.
The trio, along with a juvenile, carried out the robberies on Aug. 9 in Solon and Cuyahoga Falls and botched a carjacking in Streetsboro.
The first incident happened about 11:30 a.m. on Third Street, near Bailey Road, in Cuyahoga Falls. The group rear-ended a 22-year-old woman’s Jeep SW. When the woman got out to look at the damage, they pointed a gun at her, jumped in the Jeep and sped away.
The group drove to Streetsboro and followed a 39-year-old woman to a parking lot near Planet Fitness on Ohio 303. Its members parked next to the woman and pointed guns at her when she got out of her car. The group grabbed her keys and got in her SUV. The woman fought back, shut off her car using a cellphone application, and the trio got out of the car, back into the stolen Jeep and drove away.
Shortly after, the group ended up in Solon and rear-ended the car of a 62-year-old rabbi on Glenallen Avenue. One of the robbers stuck a gun in the man’s side and demanded his keys. Two men jumped into the rabbi’s 2022 Volvo S90 and sped away, while a third drove off in the stolen Jeep.
Solon police tracked the Volvo to East 94th Street in Garfield Heights, where they found the car and arrested Williams after a foot chase.
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