{"id":21706,"date":"2013-06-03T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21706"},"modified":"2013-06-03T16:30:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T20:30:00","slug":"cortnee-brantley-sentenced-to-1-year-and-1-day-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21706","title":{"rendered":"Cortnee Brantley Sentenced To 1 Year And 1 Day In Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>A federal judge sentenced a 25-year-old Tampa woman to serve time in federal prison. She was charged with misprision of a felony in a case where two police officers were killed.<\/p>\n

On Monday, U. S. district Judge James Moody, Jr.,<\/strong> sentenced Ms. Cortnee Brantley <\/strong>to one year and one day in prison.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors had sought to get Ms. Brantley<\/strong> a 36-month prison sentence.<\/p>\n

Attorney Grady Irvin, Jr.,<\/strong> who was court-appointed to represent Ms. Brantley<\/strong> said her incarceration ranged up to 36 months in prison.<\/p>\n

Judge Moody<\/strong> said he had to \u201cbalance the tragedy of what occurred, including Ms. Brantley\u2019s<\/strong> failures, with the rights she had to remain silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Brantley<\/strong> will not report to prison immediately. She qualifies for a minimum security housing facility and will be allowed to self-report upon designation. It is likely that both the government and Ms. Brantley<\/strong> will appeal, Attorney Irvin<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n

Attorney Irvin<\/strong> argued that the 30-36 month sentencing calculation was flawed and the judge agreed.<\/p>\n

In January, 2013, a jury convicted Ms. Brantley,<\/strong> 25, of misprision of a felony, a rarely used federal charge that means concealing a person from arrest.<\/p>\n

On June 29, 2010, Ms. Brantley<\/strong> was driving when police conducted a traffic stop on her vehicle. She pulled to the side of the road at the intersection of N. 50th<\/sup> Street and E. 23rd<\/sup> Avenue.<\/p>\n

Dontae Morris,<\/strong> 27, was identified as the passenger in her vehicle. Morris <\/strong>is alleged to have shot both Officer Jeffery Kocab<\/strong> and Officer David Curtis,<\/strong> both 31, at close range when they attempted to arrest him on a worthless check charge originated in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

Both officers died.<\/p>\n

After the shooting, Ms. Brantley <\/strong>fled the scene in her vehicle and Morris <\/strong>fled on foot. However, prosecutors used cell phone records to prove she remained in contact with Morris<\/strong> after the shooting.<\/p>\n

Her first trial ended in a hung jury. During a second trial, the jury found Ms. Brantley<\/strong> guilty of the charge. At the time of the jury verdict, Judge Moody <\/strong>questioned whether the prosecution had proven its case against Ms. Brantley.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In February, Judge Moody <\/strong>issued his 12-page written decision, and stated, \u201cThe Court concludes that, by the thinnest of legal threads, the jury\u2019s verdict is supported by the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris<\/strong> has been linked to the murders of five people, including the two police officers. He was convicted of killing Rodney Jones,<\/strong> 41, who was killed outside of the Cotton Club in West Tampa on May 31, 2010.<\/p>\n

Morris <\/strong>was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County Judge William Fuente<\/strong> has set a tentative trial date of November 4th<\/sup>, for the murder trial of the police officers. It has not been determined if Judge Fuente<\/strong> will select an Orlando jury to hear the case.<\/p>\n

The murders of the police officers were the last murders Morris<\/strong> is accused of committing. No trial dates have been set in the murders of Derek Anderson,<\/strong> who was killed on May 18, 2010, or Harold Wright,<\/strong> 25, who was killed on June 8th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Morris<\/strong> is accused of killing both men as well.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor A federal judge sentenced a 25-year-old Tampa woman to serve time in federal prison. She was charged with misprision of a felony in a case where two police officers were killed. On Monday, U. S. district Judge James Moody, Jr., sentenced Ms. Cortnee Brantley to one year and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}