YOUNGSTOWN Man pleads guilty in shooting

Prosecutors have been unable to locate the victim.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A second man has pleaded guilty to reduced charges related to a March 2000 shooting outside Choffin Career Center.
Leopoldo T. Prieto, 23, of Lansdowne Boulevard, now awaits sentencing for conspiring to commit felonious assault.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed a count of illegally taking a firearm onto school grounds and two firearm specifications.
Assistant Prosecutor Jay Macejko said he will recommend probation. Judge James C. Evans ordered a background check before the sentence is imposed.
Prieto was one of two people charged after the shooting, which was apparently sparked by a fistfight between Prieto and another man, Demetric Cobb.
He was originally charged with complicity to felonious assault, which is a second-degree felony. The amended charge to which Prieto pleaded guilty is a third-degree felony.
What happened
Police said Herbert Shelton, Prieto and Cobb got into an argument outside The Rayen School in March 2000.
When Cobb left Rayen for Choffin, Prieto and Shelton followed him, and the fight broke out between Prieto and Cobb.
Prieto and Shelton got into a car, with Prieto behind the wheel, and started to drive away. Macejko said Prieto stopped the car and Shelton leaned out a window with a gun, firing a shot toward Cobb. No one was hit.
Shelton, 21, of Alameda Avenue, pleaded guilty in July 2001 to felonious assault and was sentenced to four years in prison.
He was released on shock probation in April 2002.
Macejko said the case against Prieto would have been difficult to prove at trial.
For one thing, Cobb cannot be located to testify against him.
Macejko had filed a motion asking that he be allowed to present Cobb's testimony from a preliminary hearing in Youngstown Municipal Court in March 2000 at Prieto's trial, which was scheduled for today.
Prieto's plea made the motion a moot point.
It would also have been difficult to prove that Prieto stopped the car specifically so Shelton could fire at Cobb, which would have been required in proving complicity to felonious assault, Macejko said.
Prieto also pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of receiving stolen property, for which Macejko said he also will recommend probation.
bjackson@vindy.com