Failed appeal should bring 2017 home invasion case to a close
In declining to hear an appeal from one of four men convicted in a 2017 Madison Township home invasion, the Indiana Supreme Court appears to have put a close to the four-year saga.
In 2018, Putnam Circuit Court Judge Matt Headley sentenced Justin Cherry, 32, formerly of Indianapolis, to 72 years in prison for his role in an April 2017 home invasion in which he and three other defendants held an elderly couple at gunpoint and ransacked their home.
Cherry had previously found partial success before the Indiana Court of Appeals, getting several of his convictions overturned based on double jeopardy.
However, Headley still handed 55-year sentence on the remaining charges.
Cherry found no quarter from the Supreme Court in the latest appeal.
In an order issued last month, Chief Justice Loretta Rush noted that each justice had reviewed the case and voted on the petition, choosing to deny the motion.
The appeal was probably the last hope for any relief any of the four defendants had in the case.
Like Cherry, 33-year-old Paul Reese Jr., believed to be the ringleader, went to trial and was initially sentenced to 72 years in prison. He has also exhausted his opportunities at appeal.
Their two co-defendants, 35-year-old Charles Maybaum and 23-year-old Daltyn Randolph, both entered guilty pleas following the sentencings of Reese and Cherry.
Headley sentenced Maybaum to 30 years with the Indiana Department of Correction and Randolph to 20 years.
Cherry is currently housed at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility with an earliest possible release date of October 2057. Reese is also at Wabash Valley with an earliest release date of January 2072.
Housed in New Castle Correctional Facility, Maybaum’s earliest release date is listed as June 2040. Meanwhile Randolph, at Miami Correctional Facility, could be released in June of 2026.
Maybaum and Reese, however, each face additional legal trouble, as they are charged in a similar Owen County home invasion from May 2017. Trial dates for each men have been canceled multiple times due to COVID-19 and other factors.