photo by: Mugshot courtesy of the Kansas Department of Corrections

Chester Wendell Brockman is pictured with the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

Updated at 4:55 p.m. Friday, Aug. 16

A man who was convicted earlier this year of robbing a woman at gunpoint in a Lawrence home will not get a new trial, a Douglas County judge ruled on Friday.

A jury on Jan. 19 found Chester Wendell Brockman, 52, guilty of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated burglary for an incident in the summer of 2022 in which he and another man forced their way into a home on Bainbridge Circle in west Lawrence, as a woman held a 2-year-old child, and stole thousands of dollars in cash and other items, as the Journal-World reported.

The woman had told police that he stole around $15,000 in cash from the home.

The defendant, through his attorney Razmi Tahirkheli, requested a new trial, arguing that the defense wasn’t provided police body camera footage and other evidence that could have aided his defense at trial, some of which evidence had not been available even to the District Attorney’s Office until after trial.

Judge Stacey Donovan on Friday said she had reviewed the evidence in question, including over three hours of video, and found no reasonable probability that it would have had a material impact on the case heard by the jury or on its ultimate outcome: the guilty verdict.

“The court simply cannot make that finding,” Donovan said.

She said that other evidence the jury saw, including some surveillance footage and witness testimony, was substantially the same as the missing evidence and that Brockman himself had told the jury that he was at the house in question that day. It wasn’t, she noted, a case of mistaken identity.

After denying the motion for a new trial, Donovan scheduled Brockman’s sentencing for Oct. 8.

Brockman has multiple felony convictions in Douglas County, including three theft convictions in 2015, aggravated battery in 2013 and multiple felony drug convictions, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

The other man involved in the case is Markcus Trey Sanders, 30, of Lawrence. He was wanted by law enforcement in connection with the robbery after he failed to appear in court in December of 2022. He was located in Jackson County, Missouri, in March and transferred back to Douglas County to face felony charges of aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary with Brockman. He is also charged in Douglas County with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with a traffic stop in August of 2020. According to the Kansas Department of Corrections, he was previously convicted in Douglas County of aggravated burglary and aggravated intimidation of a witness, both felonies, in 2012.

Sanders was released from the Douglas County Jail in May after posting a $100,000 surety bond. He is next scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 17 for a status conference.