Thursday March 7, 2024
By Bethany Bruner
John Wooden, seen here in the center during a Jan. 30, 2024 hearing, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday, March 7, 2024 in the death of Mohamed Hassan Adam, a prominent member of the Columbus Somali and Muslim community. Brooke LaValley, Columbus Dispatch.
A man who kidnapped, robbed and killed a prominent member of the local Somali and Muslim communities will not be eligible to apply for an early release from prison for at least 73 years.
John Wooden, 48, received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for at least 38 years, plus at least an additional 35 years, during a hearing held Thursday afternoon. Wooden would be more than 120 years old before he would ever be eligible for a parole hearing.
A jury found Wooden guilty of murder, aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in October in the December 2021 death of Mohamed Hassan Adam, the 48-year-old imam at Masjid Abu Hurairah mosque on the city's Northeast Side.
Mohamed Hassan Adam's son brings prosecutors to tears
Franklin County Judge Karen Held Phipps heard four statements from Adam's family and religious community members.
Abdulkhabir Hassan, one of Adam's sons, told Phipps about being tasked, in accordance with religious tradition, with helping to lower his father's upper body into his grave.
"I can still feel his head on my hands, his hair going through my fingers," Hassan said. "He raised us and taught us to never touch an elder's head as a sign of respect and there he was."
As Hassan spoke, the prosecutors on the case, Assistant Franklin County prosecutors Jack Wong and Debra Gorrell, wiped tears from their eyes, as did many of the more than 65 people who packed Phipps' courtroom for Wooden's sentencing hearing.
Why was John Wooden's sentencing delayed?
Wooden was initially scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 5, but Wooden fired his attorney, Paul Scarsella, at the last minute and asked for a new one.
At that hearing, Judge Karen Held Phipps told Wooden that he would be sentenced on Thursday for the crimes he was found guilty of at trial, regardless of whether other charges filed against him were ready to be resolved.
Imam killing rocked Columbus' Somali and Muslim communities
Adam was found shot inside a van parked in an overgrown lot on Dec. 24, 2021. The imam, a prominent member of the local Somali and Muslim communities, was last seen two days earlier.
Testimony at Wooden's trial revealed Columbus police located bullet casings where Adam's body was found that matched a gun later found at Wooden's home. That gun had Wooden's DNA on it. Wooden's family had also owned the lot where the body was found.
Testimony further revealed Wooden and Adam had met before when Wooden had sold a box truck to Adam. That sale happened about two months before Adam's death.
Hundreds of people gathered for Adam's funeral, coming from as far away as Kenya to pay their respects.
Wooden also pleads guilty to pair of bank robberies
On Thursday, Wooden also entered guilty pleas to two counts of robbery related to bank robberies that occurred in December 2021 and January 2022 at a Kemba Financial Credit Union branch in Clintonville. Wooden's prison sentence on those counts was ordered to run concurrently with the prison sentence he received in Adam's murder.
Wooden has an extensive criminal history, according to court records, including having been released from federal prison on unrelated charges less than a year before Adam was killed.
On Tuesday, Wooden's co-defendant, Isaiah Brown-Miller, 24, received a sentence of at least 26 years and no more than 31 years in prison for his role in Adam's kidnapping and robbery.