Ottawa man who served time for La Salle bar fight death found guilty of robbery

An Ottawa man faces up to 14 years in prison after a La Salle County jury convicted him Wednesday of robbing and punching a woman in October.

A jury deliberated an hour and a half and convicted Dezzan D. Phillips, 32, of robbery and domestic battery. Sentencing is set for March 21.

Robbery, the controlling charge, is a Class 2 felony carrying an extended sentencing range of three to 14 years due to a criminal history that includes involuntary manslaughter. Phillips was convicted and sent to prison for killing Nicholas Puyear of Peru during a bar fight Nov. 10, 2017, in La Salle.

Phillips showed no reaction to the verdict. After the jurors filed out under escort, however, he tried to file an oral motion for ineffective counsel. Judge Cynthia M. Raccuglia told him to reduce his grievances to writing and, when Phillips continued to argue, ordered him removed from the court.

Actually, there may be more prison time coming. La Salle County State’s Attorney Joe Navarro confirmed that his office is pursing a petition to revoke Phillips’ probation on a previous drug conviction.

If successful, Phillips faces an additional three to seven years, and prosecutors could argue for a sentence consecutive to Wednesday’s robbery conviction, making Phillips eligible for an aggregate sentence of up to 21 years.

Phillips was charged with robbery and domestic battery after the victim, now 47, called Ottawa police and said she’d checked into the Super 8 Motel only to be awakened by Phillips, who acquired a key card from the desk clerk to confront her.

At trial, Phillips’ lawyer argued that the act of taking the victim’s phone wasn’t classic robbery – there was no injury to her hand as he took it – and he disputed whether Phillips and the victim were in a dating relationship.

The victim had acknowledged that Phillips hadn’t given her flowers or chocolate or taken her to the movies.

“Were they actually dating?” Public Defender Ryan Hamer told jurors during closing arguments. “It sure doesn’t sound like it.”

Hamer also urged the jury to consider defects in the state’s case and to take the victim’s testimony with a grain of salt. By Hamer’s count, the victim had been drinking about 14 hours before the incident and described a loud exchange that never reached the ears of the desk clerk.

“I ask you,” Hamer said, “does that make any sense at all?”

But Phillips’ case was undermined by audio-visual surveillance. A camera at the front desk recorded him asking the desk clerk for a key to the victim’s room and, minutes later, the victim appearing at the desk asking to use the phone while massaging the side of her face where Phillips had struck her.

“He hit me,” she could be heard telling the dispatcher and, “he took my cellphone.”

Earlier at trial, the victim testified that they had been in a relationship, in so far as they had lived together and only recently broken up.

“And don’t just take her word for it,” prosecutor Jeremiah Adams told jurors during closing arguments. “The defendant, on video while trying to con his way into her room, called her ‘his girl.’”

Phillips’ case was further damaged by a pair of recorded calls he placed from the La Salle County Jail. In the recordings, Phillips could be heard telling his mother that the victim, who was within earshot, should write, sign and notarize a statement recanting the claims.

She did this in late December. However, she then tried to rescind the statement.

Adams told jurors to reject any notion that the victim had been untruthful. Rather, he said, Phillips was “clearly terrified” that the victim would take the stand and incriminate him, “and he used his family to pressure her to recant.”

“Victim intimidation is an age-old trick that you aren’t going to fall for,” Adams said.

Prosecutor Kelley Porter urged jurors to consider the victim’s live testimony and to put her earlier effort to rescind her statement into its proper context.

“She found strength, she found her self-worth, and she found her voice,” Porter said.

[ Ottawa man awaits robbery verdict ]