A second suspect involved in the purchase of a gun that fatally shot a police officer three years ago has been sentenced.
30-year-old Ashantae Corruthers of Indianapolis received her punishment on Tuesday August 13 at a hearing in a federal court in Illinois. She was sentenced to four years in jail for her role in a straw purchase of a firearm that killed a local police officer and wounded his colleague.
In May 2021, Officer Chistopher Oberheim was fatally shot by the illegally bought handgun when a domestic dispute call to which he was responding turned into a shootout. Officer Jeffrey Creel was also wounded, having been working the scene alongside his fallen colleague.
Corruthers was sentenced for her involvement in the plot to buy and transfer the gun illegally as well as her role in conspiring to participate in so-called “misleading conduct.” In June 2023, the suspect pleaded guilty to working with Darion Lafayette and Regina Lewis. The three collaborated to buy the weapon in 2020 from a store in Indianapolis because Lafayette was a convicted felon who was not legally allowed to buy a gun.
Corruthers lied on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives form by saying that she purchased the handgun for her own use, reporting in 2021 to Indianapolis police that it had been stolen. In May of that year, Lafayette used the firearm to kill Oberheim and wound Creel. He was also shot dead at the scene.
In December 2023, Lewis was sentenced to eight and a half years in jail for her own role in the straw purchase of the murder weapon. She was previously convicted of conspiracy charges to buy and transfer a gun as well as plotting to participate in misleading conduct. Lewis, too, pleaded guilty to the charges against her.
At the time of her sentencing, Corruthers was set to have a sentencing date of February 12, 2024. However, the original hearing date was pushed back several months, resulting in the August 13 sentence.
