YOUNGSTOWN — Attorneys for Kimonie Bryant, 26, charged in the 2020 killing of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney, have asked for postponement of Bryant’s Sept. 11 jury trial, but Judge Anthony D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court is not willing to do that just yet.

Bryant’s attorneys, John Juhasz and Lynn Maro, said during a hearing Wednesday they filed a motion July 5 to postpone the trial because they need more time to prepare.

The filing pointed to the arrest in January of one of the three defendants in the case, Andre McCoy Jr., 23, and the electronic devices that were seized from McCoy and others at that time.

“Those devices have now been ‘dumped,’ and the extraction results have been made available to the defendant in the last couple of weeks,” the filing states.

“Counsel is not even close to completing the task of reviewing those items. There is no way in fact to know how long it will take. As indicated at the last pretrial, there is a huge amount of information. It is the obligation of defense counsel to review that information, and, that review cannot even be cut short by a plea,” it added.

“Counsel cannot allow a defendant to enter into a plea, no matter how favorable the plea agreement, if all of the (potential evidence) has not been reviewed and discussed with the defendant.”

The filing suggests that prosecutors are working toward a plea agreement with Bryant, who was at one time considered the likely shooter in the case.

But since then, physical evidence has surfaced suggesting that co-defendant Brandon Crump Jr., 20, was the shooter, such as Crump’s DNA being found “at the scene” of the killing of Rowan at a home on Perry Street in Struthers. Four adults also were shot in what police believe started out as a robbery.

A gag order in the case prevents attorneys and other parties from discussing evidence outside of hearings and filings.

The July 5 filing states a lone gunman entered the home at 1:52 a.m. and pointed it at Andre McCoy Jr., yelled something at McCoy and then started shooting. “When it was over Mr. Crump ran out,” the filing states. McCoy was badly injured in the gunfire, but is indicted as a co-defendant with Bryant and Crump because of text messages suggesting that McCoy was complicit in the crimes.

Another passage in the filing states that “virtually all of the testimonial and physical evidence available indicates that Kimonie Bryant was not the person who entered the Perry Street address and shot five people; yet he is one of two people charged with capital specifications in this case.”

McCoy is the other. Crump is not charged with a specification that could lead to the death penalty because he was a juvenile at the time of the crimes, and juvenile killers are not eligible for the death penalty in Ohio.

During Wednesday’s hearing, D’Apolito said he will consider postponing Bryant’s trial if there is a good reason to do it, but he he thinks it is premature to do it yet. And if he does need to push the trial date back, it’s “not going to be months and months,” the judge said.

Some of the attorneys in the case have said in recent months that plea agreements are being discussed. Juhasz told the judge Wednesday progress is being made in coming to a “resolution” in Bryant’s case, but he and Maro are proceeding as if the case will go forward to trial as a capital case.

McCoy’s trial date is Sept. 5, and Crump’s trial is scheduled for Oct. 2.