Jury convicts St. Paul man in fatal shooting of Rice Street bar customer – Twin Cities

A jury has convicted a St. Paul man for his role in the assault and shooting of a 42-year-old outside a Rice Street bar.

Edward G. Robinson, 43, was found guilty this week in Ramsey County District Court of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and first-degree assault for the killing of Oscar Lee Covington, who died nearly a month after he was robbed and shot on Oct. 30 after patronizing Born’s Bar along Rice Street near Manitoba Avenue. He’s scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 7.

The alleged shooter, Marlon Deion Dickey, 40, has been charged with second-degree murder and prosecutors are awaiting his extradition from another state, according to a spokesman for the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.

Meanwhile, Erica Ruth Hampton, who was working as a bartender at Born’s, is charged with aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact. A jury trial is scheduled for next month.

Officers called to the bar about 5:45 p.m. on a report of a shooting found Covington on the ground in front of the bar with a gunshot wound to his torso.

Items recovered by police at the scene included Robinson’s wallet and cellphone.

Covington talked to investigators at the hospital the next day and said that, when he went outside, a short man he didn’t know but who he’d seen around asked him for a cigarette. People with the man had their hoods up, which he made note of because it wasn’t cold. He said he was then robbed and shot.

Surveillance video from the bar and nearby businesses showed that Covington left the bar about 5:42 p.m. Robinson “began a physical assault” on Covington, with others joining in, according to the criminal complaint.