photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Ontareo X. Jackson

A Lawrence teen on Tuesday was sentenced to 59 months for second-degree attempted murder in connection with a North Lawrence shooting last year.

In February, Ontareo X. Jackson, 19, pleaded no contest to the charge of attempted second-degree murder, a level-three felony, for his part in the shooting of Caylee Nehrbass on May 27, 2021, who was with her boyfriend in a car at the time.

Judge Kay Huff sentenced Jackson to the standard amount of prison time for someone with no criminal history, she said. Before her ruling she heard from two of Jackson’s supporters.

One was a family member who said that Jackson would have the support of his family after his sentence was served to keep him on a positive path.

The second supporter was a social worker, Maren Santelli, who worked with Jackson in a high school special education program. She said Jackson was working with her before the coronavirus closed schools and it was hard to keep him in the program once he turned 18.

Santelli said this incident was out of character in her experience with Jackson and she thinks Jackson will take the right steps while in prison to get his high school diploma. She said she was working with Jackson’s family to get him additional support for furthering his education.

The judge also heard from the victim’s grandfather, who asked for a longer sentence for Jackson to reflect the physical and mental suffering Nehrbass has felt since the incident. He spoke on her behalf because she was too afraid to attend the sentencing, he said.

“There are still bullet fragments in her brain,” he said.

The grandfather said that Nehrbass was scared of being in any place for too long, and it has prevented her from joining the workforce. He said the family has about $7,000 in hospital bills for her treatment.

Jackson also spoke for himself during the sentencing but managed only a single sentence before he began to choke up.

“I would like to apologize to the victim,” Jackson said.

Huff said that she was glad to hear his apology and that she thought he understood that a life could have been lost in this incident and he was lucky that the victim survived.

Jackson’s attorney, Branden Smith, said the court should follow the plea agreement that he and the District Attorney’s Office had worked together to develop.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Seth Brackman said he agreed that the sentence proposed by the plea agreement was appropriate for Jackson, who was taking responsibility for his actions.

Jackson received 59 months in prison with 245 days of credit served. He will have 36 months of post-release supervision after his sentence and must register as a violent offender.

Smith asked the judge to waive Jackson’s attorney fees, which were about $5,000, he said.

Huff agreed to waive the fees since Jackson won’t be able to earn the money while in prison and may have a hard time finding work after his release with this type of felony on his record, she said. He is still ordered to pay the court costs and fees, including a KBI database fee. The KBI will collect his DNA, and it will be on record for law enforcement nationwide, she said.

Jackson was a co-defendant in the case along with Alejandro Martinez-Diaz, 19. A jury trial for Martinez-Diaz is scheduled to start on April 11.

As previously reported by the Journal-World, Nehrbass testified during a preliminary hearing in October that she and her boyfriend, Javier Romero, 18, were driving in North Lawrence when it appeared that Martinez-Diaz and Jackson were following them.

Nehrbass said they thought they had lost them while driving but encountered them again at the intersection of North Seventh and North streets, where one of the men opened fire. Nehrbass said she blacked out after she was hit, but woke up while Romero was on the phone with 911 reporting the shooting and was driving her to the hospital.

Romero testified in November that he did not initially realize the vehicle at the intersection was the car following them; he said he realized something was wrong when he entered the intersection to turn left, which required his vehicle to cross in front of the silver sedan.

Romero said that’s when he saw Jackson lean out of the passenger side of the vehicle, firing a compact assault-style rifle, and Martinez-Diaz leaning out of the driver’s side with a handgun.