Man convicted of ordering hit carried out at wrong house

CHARDON, Ohio – A man who served prison time for a murder-for-hire plot in 2004 has been convicted of aggravated murder and other charges in a contract killing two years later in which a hired killer went to the wrong home and killed someone with the same name as the intended target.

A jury on Monday convicted Joe Rosebrook of all counts in the fatal shooting of Daniel Ott in 2006 in a Cleveland suburb.

“There’s not closure, but justice,” Leroy Ott, Daniel Ott’s father, told the News-Herald.

Rosebrook is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 6. A message was left Tuesday by The Associated Press seeking comment from Rosebrook’s attorney.

Authorities said another Daniel Ott was targeted for double-crossing Rosebrook in 2004. They said the 60-year-old Rosebrook was running a stolen-car operation and had hired Ott to kill a man who was part of the operation but co-operated with authorities’ investigation into the ring. But instead of killing the man, Ott went to the authorities.

Because of Ott’s co-operation, Rosebrook ended up pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in 2005 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. While in prison, Rosebrook met another inmate, Chad South.

Inmates testified in Rosebrook’s trial that he had been looking to hire an inmate who was getting out of prison to kill Ott for the betrayal. Prosecutors said Rosebrook arranged to have his brother pay South $10,000 for the killing.

On May 26, 2006, South entered the Burton Township home of another Daniel Ott, a 31-year-old greenhouse worker, instead of the then-69-year-old Daniel Ott who lived in Akron.

South, 46, was convicted this year of murder and kidnapping and is serving at least 28 years in prison.