Two 18-year-old Montgomery County men have been sentenced to prison following a months-long investigation into a series of vehicle thefts, burglaries and other crimes across the county, Dayton Daily Magazine reported.
Kristian Cochran, 18, of Harrison Township, received a seven-year prison sentence, with a potential maximum of nine years under Ohio’s Reagan Tokes Act, and Damion Gay, 18, of Dayton, was sentenced to two years, with a possible maximum of three years under the same law, according to Dayton Daily Magazine’s report.
The investigation was conducted by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit and detectives assigned to the Washington Township Substation, Dayton Daily Magazine reported. It began on the morning of April 2, 2026, when detectives responded to reports that two vehicles had been stolen in Washington Township.
Gay pleaded guilty on October 14, 2026, to burglary, and Cochran pleaded guilty on November 4, 2026, to several offenses connected to the investigation, according to the report. Cochran was sentenced six days later, on November 10.
Both sentences were imposed under Ohio’s Reagan Tokes Act, the state’s indefinite-sentencing law for serious felonies, under which a prison term can be extended beyond its minimum — up to the stated maximum — based on an inmate’s conduct in prison. That is why Cochran’s seven-year sentence carries a possible nine years, and Gay’s two-year sentence a possible three, according to Dayton Daily Magazine’s report.
The case began with stolen vehicles in Washington Township and widened into an investigation of thefts and burglaries across Montgomery County, Dayton Daily Magazine reported — the kind of multi-jurisdiction case the Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit exists to work, with detectives from the Washington Township Substation following the reports as they accumulated from April onward.
The sentences close the adult cases described in the report. A related juvenile case remains open: a juvenile defendant has pleaded guilty to three burglaries and a sentencing hearing in that case is still pending, Dayton Daily Magazine reported. Details in this report are from Dayton Daily Magazine.
Photo: Steve Morgan, CC BY-SA
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