Sentence for Lima kidnapping, robbery tops 57 years

LIMA — A Lima man who was just two months removed from a 10-year prison stint when he took part in an armed robbery and kidnapping a year ago is heading back behind bars — this time potentially for more than 57 years.

Kiarris Laws, 28, was sentenced Monday in Allen County Common Pleas Court after being convicted by a jury on Dec. 11 on one count of aggravated robbery with a firearm specification, a first-degree felony; two counts of kidnapping, first-degree felonies with firearm specifications, each with three-year gun specs; and one count of having weapons under disability.

Judge Jeffrey Reed sentenced Laws to the maximum allowable 11-year prison terms on each of the first-degree felony charges. Added to each of those sentences were three additional years for the use of a firearm during the commission of the crime, and another three years on each count after Reed deemed Laws to be a Repeat Violent Offender under Ohio law for his prior conviction of a first-degree felony offense of violence.