View a previous report from when Gregory Coleman Jr. died in the video player above.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- A man has been sentenced to life in prison for beating a man to death outside a Short North bar.
Chrystian Foster was convicted of murder on Friday for the 2022 beating death of Gregory Coleman Jr. outside a now-closed bar. Just over an hour later, the judge sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.
Coleman, 37, died over a week after being assaulted outside Julep in September 2022. Because the assault was captured on video, police quickly identified Foster and Dwayne Cummings as Coleman's suspected assailants, and they were arrested weeks later. Coleman's family has claimed in a lawsuit against Julep that Cummings and Foster were the bar's employees, while Julep -- which closed in July 2023 for unrelated reasons -- claimed the two never worked at the bar.
Coleman was a longtime bartender at nearby Short North Pint House and had a daughter. His father, Gregory Coleman Sr., cried as the judge read the verdict.
The video showed Coleman squaring up to one of the suspects when a second man came up from Coleman’s blind spot and hit him on the side of the head. Coleman fell to the ground – half on the sidewalk and half in the street — while the two men in the video proceeded to hit him multiple times.
"Whatever Mr. Cummings started, Mr. Foster made sure to finish," Judge Chris Brown said in Franklin County court on Friday.
Foster's verdict came three months after his co-defendant in the case, Dwayne Cummings, was also convicted of murder. After being found guilty by a jury in February, Cummings was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
