Judge grants new trial to man convicted of providing gun in 2014 murder of Endia Martin

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A judge has upheld an appeal and granted a new trial to a man convicted of providing a gun to his niece that was used to kill 14-year-old Endia Martin in 2014.

Donnell Flora was convicted in 2016 of first-degree murder, attempted first degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm for wounding another teen girl who was the intended target of the shooting.

An Illinois Appellate Court judge reversed Flora's convictions and ordered a new trial, saying, "Statements made by the prosecutor in closing arguments, ratified when the trial court overruled defendant's objections to those statements, misrepresented what the State had to prove for the jury to find defendant accountable for murder and attempted murder."

Martin was shot and killed during a street fight that escalated from a social media feud over a boy. Maritn was not the intended target of the shooting; the intended target, Lanekia Reynolds, was wounded.

The girl who shot Martin, who was not named during the trial because she was a juvenile, pleaded guilty to murder. She was handed a mandatory sentence of at least five years in juvenile custody, and can't be held beyond her 21st birthday. She was then sentenced to an additional two years in prison in 2018.

Flora, who is in a wheelchair, testified that when he learned his niece was planning to fight, he grabbed a handgun, got on a bus and made his way to the scene outside a home in Back of the Yards.

He testified that he brought the gun to protect his niece, and gave it to her with instructions to give it to her adult cousin, Vandetta Redwood, which he saw her do. During the chaos of the fight, his niece opened fire. Reynolds was grazed on the arm, while Martin was fatally shot in the back.

Flora was sentenced to 100 years in prison. Redwood, meanwhile, was charged with handing the loaded gun to the teen, but she was acquitted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.