PITTSBURGH Ex-local man guilty of violating drug laws

Several New Castle witnesses testified against Shepherd.
PITTSBURGH -- A jury found a former New Castle man guilty of violating federal drug laws in U.S. District Court here, and a federal grand jury also indicted a Youngstown man on bank robbery charges.
U.S. Atty. Mary Beth Buchanan said a jury of seven men and five women found Leroy Shepherd guilty of conspiracy to violate federal narcotics laws.
Shepherd also was ordered to forfeit $1.28 million to the United States as proceeds of his drug trafficking activity. Shepherd, 42, of Eagle, Mich., formerly of New Castle, was tried before U.S. District Judge Gary L. Lancaster here.
A press release by the U.S. attorney's office says evidence presented at trial established that between 1996 and September 2002, Shepherd conspired to distribute 10 pounds or more of cocaine. One Houston-area witness testified that he distributed between 200 and 330 pounds of cocaine to Shepherd while Shepherd lived in Michigan.
More testimony
Other witnesses testified that they took multiple quantities of cocaine received from the Houston source to Shepherd in Michigan, meeting Shepherd in an auto garage.
Several witnesses from New Castle and one from the Lansing, Mich., area also testified that Shepherd distributed cocaine to them in quantities ranging from less than an ounce at a time to 2.2 pounds.
Jurors viewed a videotape of Shepherd's Eagle, Mich., home and several classic cars that he owned. Witnesses reported that Shepherd was never known to have a legitimate job. He will be sentenced at 10 a.m. Oct. 17.
A federal grand jury decided there was enough evidence to indict George Washington Penson III, 40, of Youngstown, on one charge of bank robbery.
The indictment says Penson, of Kenneth Street on Youngstown's East Side, robbed the First National Bank of Pennsylvania on Wilmington Road on March 26, 2003. A trial date has not been set.