<p>CROWN POINT, Ind. — An Iowa man has been sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty in the 2015 death of an Illinois man fatally shot outside a Gary gas station.</p>
<p>A Lake County judge sentenced Dontrall Jer’i Phillips, 25, of Davenport, Iowa, on Thursday after accepting his guilty plea to a murder charge under a plea agreement that calls for prosecutors to drop a robbery charge.</p>
<p>Phillips was one of four people charged in the April 2015 shooting death of Donald Fuzzell, 21, of Calumet Park, Illinois, during a botched robbery in the parking lot of a Gary gas station.</p>
<p>Daidreon Sparks, Walter Rondo III and Jimmie Caldwell are also facing charges in the killing.</p>
<p>Deputy prosecutor Keith Anderson said both Phillips and Caldwell fired weapons, but ballistics evidence showed Phillips didn’t fire the fatal shots, the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-courts-phillips-sent-st-0319-20210318-wqz7mlpefrf45ogqaet75woxwa-story.html">Post-Tribune</a> of Merrillville reported.</p>
<p>Caldwell, Rondo, Phillips and Sparks met before the robbery and had planned “to split the proceeds from the planned robbery,” according to a probable cause affidavit which also states that they “discussed robbing someone so they could smoke and drink."</p>
<p>Phillips’ lawyer, Cipriano Rodriguez said his client, who was 19 at the time of Phillips’ killing, has a history of family and personal mental health issues and joined a gang at 12.</p>
