CLEVELAND, Ohio – A Port Clinton
woman
who helped lead several of last year’s Cleveland street takeovers was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Kira Krivosh also ordered Ashlyn Rogers, 23, to forfeit her 2020 Infiniti Q50 and cellphone to Cleveland police.
The sentencing came after Rogers pleaded guilty last month to felony charges of aggravated riot and disrupting public services.
“I’ve had time to reflect not only on what happened that night, but on the direction of my life, the people I’ve disappointed and the person I want to become,” Rogers, reading from a prepared statement, told Krivosh.
“I’m not the same person I was on Sept. 28.”
According to prosecutors, Rogers participated in and helped orchestrate seven street takeovers on Sept. 28 and 29.
The incidents plagued Cleveland last fall, with hundreds of people commandeering at least 16 intersections, highways and parking lots across the city.
Video recordings of the takeovers show cars performing stunts in intersections blocked off by spectators. Some of the takeovers included people shooting off fireworks, lighting the intersection on fire and shooting airsoft guns toward responding police cruisers.
Prosecutors said Rogers provided instructions and updated locations to participants through her Instagram accounts. She also used her Infiniti to participate in a street takeover near West 25th Street and Lorain Avenue on Sept. 29, according to prosecutors.
“She drove from her home in Port Clinton to Cleveland and intentionally blocked traffic in three separate intersections,” county Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said in a statement.
“I’m certain after receiving her 18-month sentence, she now realizes Port Clinton is better than prison.”
Connor Davin, an assistant county prosecutor, showed Krivosh images captured from Rogers’ phone and social media accounts.
One of Rogers’ Instagram posts instructed followers to “block the f—-ing cops” until the “sliders” — cars that performed donuts — departed for the next location.
“Make sure you block all sides of the intersections and let sliders through if they are trying to hop in,” she said in another post.
Davin requested a jail or prison sentence for Rogers. He referenced other street takeover cases that have recently passed through the Justice Center, many of which ended in prison terms.
A Parma man was sentenced in April to three years for his role, for example, while a Strongsville man was sentenced to nine months.
In March,
two men
who had driven up from Barberton to participate in takeovers were each sentenced to a year in prison. They said they were attracted to the scene by Instagram videos.
Brad Wolfe, Rogers’ attorney, said his client’s case was the “least severe” of those referenced by Davin. He asked Krivosh to impose community control sanctions.
“Rogers accepts full responsibility for her conduct in these matters,” he said. “She’s remorseful. She acknowledges just how negatively this affected the community, how much this affected law enforcement resources — how it put law enforcement in the face of danger, quite frankly.”
Krivosh was not swayed. After Rogers was escorted away in handcuffs, Wolfe objected to Krivosh’s formulation of the sentence.
He later declined to comment on the case.
