Ivan Brooks avoids 4th trial, pleads 'no contest' in 2019 Elyria murder

Ivan Brooks avoided a fourth murder trial when he pleaded "no contest" to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the killing of another man in a house on East Broad Street in Elyria in 2019. Brooks, 39, was scheduled to go to trial in Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Melissa Kobasher's courtroom Monday morning. Instead, he entered the "no contest" plea to charges of involuntary manslaughter, improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation or school safety zone. A "no contest" plea means Brooks did not admit guilt but admitted the truth of the allegations. It also means he retains some rights to appeal. Kobasher accepted Brooks' plea, found him guilty and scheduled sentencing for Friday afternoon. Three previous juries couldn't agree on Brooks' guilt: One in Judge James Miraldi's courtroom in 2021, and two in Kobasher's courtroom, one each in June and August 2023. All three trials ended in mistrials by hung juries. The Lorain County Prosecutor's Office dismissed one count of aggravated murder and three murder charges on Monday. Brooks also pleaded "no contest" to two counts of felonious assault, one count of improper discharge of a firearm at or into a habitation or school zone, two counts of having weapons under disability, and one count of tampering with evidence. Outlining the somewhat-complicated sentencing scheme, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Chris Pierre said his office would also amend a three-year firearms specification to a one-year firearms specification. That one-year prison term is mandatory, must be served first, and is consecutive to the recommended five-year prison term for involuntary manslaughter. All other firearms specifications were dismissed, Pierre said. The felonious assault charges merged with the involuntary manslaughter charge and the having weapons under disability charges merged with the improper discharge of a firearm charge, for sentencing, he said. "Repeat violent offender" specifications, to which Brooks also pleaded "no contest," will add no additional time to his prison sentence under the agreement, Pierre said. The defense and prosecutors recommended that Brooks serve an aggregate sentence of at least six years in prison, but the parties "also acknowledge that this court is in complete control of sentencing and that our agreements … have to be OK'd by this court, Pierre said. Brooks also will get jail time credit applied to his sentence, the parties agreed. No fines or court costs were recommended, as Brooks is indigent and has been locked up in the Lorain County Jail for close to five years. The prosecutor's office asked Kobasher to order Brooks to reimburse victim Terrence Taylor's family the cost of his funeral at sentencing. Brooks also likely faces post-release control supervision — or parole — upon release from prison; the prosecutor's office agreed not to oppose the transfer of his supervision to another state once he is freed, Pierre said. Representatives of Taylor's family were consulted on the plea agreement under the rules of Marsy's Law for victim rights in Ohio, he said. Defense attorney Giovanna Scaletta-Bremke said she and co-counsel Denise Wilms spoke with Brooks multiple times, reviewed the plea agreement, and agreed it was accurate. Through Scaletta-Bremke, Brooks then withdrew his plea of "not guilty" and entered the "no contest" plea. Kobasher then addressed Brooks, noting that he was "very hesitant to proceed at this time." "I can tell by your body language," she said. Brooks hesitated to acknowledge his name, age and whether he is a U.S. citizen when Kobasher asked him. "Sir, I can appreciate the (pause) overwhelming situation that you're in at this point in time. I'm OK if you need a break and I can have you go back and talk to your attorneys or we can continue through," Kobasher said. "I have a lot of questions for you and then it's gonna take some time." The questions then continued, with Brooks answering "yes" to basic questions and listening as Kobasher reread the charges in his plea agreement. Kobasher could go with the recommended sentence, but could also run the sentences consecutively and hand Brooks a term of up to 33 years in prison, she said in court. "I'm not saying you're getting 33 years," Kobasher told Brooks. "I'm inclined to go along with the agreement. I have to have you acknowledge that the sentences for the events could stick and that's how we get to the maximum penalty of 33 years." Brooks even corrected Kobasher several times when she said he pleaded "guilty" instead of "no contest," and she corrected herself and apologized to him. Brooks also said he was "very" satisfied with the representation of his attorneys. He has been in jail, on bond, since March 28, 2019. As of Monday morning, he had spent 1,782 days behind bars awaiting or during his three trials — four years, 10 months and 15 days. Brooks will have 30 days from his sentence to file an appeal. Background Elyria police responded to 841 Broad St. on March 19, 2019, to find Taylor, 45, dead inside the doorway. Taylor's girlfriend, Byanka Tavarez, told a 911 dispatcher, responding officers and detectives that it was Brooks — her ex-boyfriend with whom she shared two children and who had only recently been released from prison — who shot Taylor when he answered a knock at the door just before 3 a.m. Brooks and Tavarez had been arguing over child support and how active he was in their children's lives. Taylor was shot multiple times with a .40 caliber weapon, according to an autopsy. Evidence suggested the shooter ambushed him, and defense attorneys suggested at trial that there was no way Tavarez could have seen the shooter in the dark or from the angle she said she saw him. Police tried to track down Brooks, and found his white BMW SUV parked at his girlfriend Renee Richardson's house on Lexington Avenue in Lorain later that morning. They staked it out, and a Lorain officer even testified he saw Brooks outside but had orders to wait for backup. By the time police got a search warrant for the house and SUV, Brooks was gone, leaving behind his wallet, driver's license and a packed bag in the car. Brooks surrendered to federal authorities in southern Ohio's Hamilton County nine days after the murder. Between the time of the shooting and his surrender, he was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy in North Carolina but gave a fake name and was released, according to prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Brooks lied to the North Carolina deputy only because he was "a Black man falsely accused of a serious crime," Wilms said at the opening of his June 2023 trial. Physical evidence of Brooks' guilt was lacking. No shell casings, DNA, fingerprints, gunshot residue, audio or video recordings definitively linked him to the murder or the crime scene, according to his defense. Richardson pleaded guilty in June 2023 to a felony charge of tampering with evidence for erasing cellphone messages between her and Brooks that prosecutors said they could prove were shared based on phone records. Kobasher sentenced Richardson, now 33, to two years probation ending in June 2025. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.