Father and son deemed 'significant suburban drug dealers'

STRUTHERS -- Officers have confiscated 20 ounces, or 1.25 pounds, of compressed powder cocaine, drug processing equipment, a machine gun with silencer and other weapons from a hidden room at a home at 109 Clingan Road, investigators said.
Officers of the Mahoning Valley Drug Task Force and Struthers Police Department arrested the 49-year-old owner and occupant of the home Saturday after the execution of a search warrant there, Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains and Task Force Commander David Allen have announced.
The drugs and a machine used to compress the powder into kilogram-size bricks were found in a room behind a false wall in the home's basement, investigators said. A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds.
A second arrest
Also Saturday, the Task Force and Poland Township officers arrested the man's 29-year-old son at his 6737 Clingan Road home in Poland. At that home, they used a search warrant to find two ounces of cocaine, several baggies of marijuana, several OxyContin and methadone tablets, a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and drug paraphernalia.
He faces charges of trafficking in cocaine. Other charges are pending grand jury action and consultation with federal authorities.
Allen calls the father and son a team, classifying them as "significant suburban drug dealers."
The searches were the culmination of a yearlong investigation. Case officers are Youngstown Police Department Patrolman Robert Patton and Mahoning County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Allen. Also investigating is Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Dennis Sarisky.
More arrests are anticipated.