Judge denies bond for murder defendant

The defendant was convicted of killing someone 121⁄2 years ago.

YOUNGSTOWN — As requested by the prosecutor, a judge has denied bond to a man who was secretly indicted this month in a year-old Austintown homicide.

Judge R. Scott Krichbaum ordered James A. Hall, 30, of Victoria Street, held without bond on an aggravated murder charge with a firearm specification and a repeat violent offender specification, together with a charge of being a felon with a gun.

Hall, who was indicted Dec. 6 by a Mahoning County grand jury, is charged in the Oct. 14, 2006, shooting death of Jeffrey A. Queen, 35, of Lanterman Road, whose body was found in the woods near homes in the 4000 block of Riblett Road. Queen had been shot multiple times.

In a Thursday hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, J. Michael Thompson, assistant county prosecutor, argued that bond should be denied due to the seriousness of the new charge and Hall’s conviction in a previous homicide in Youngstown.

Hall was sentenced to five to 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and felonious assault in a May 1995 shooting that killed Arthur Tarver and critically wounded Larry J. Hargrave. Hall and both victims were then 17.

The repeat violent offender specification cites that conviction, which occurred after Hall was bound over from juvenile court for trial as an adult. Tarver died from bullet wounds to his neck and chest. Hargrave suffered 13 gunshot wounds but survived.

Hall is in federal custody awaiting a mid-January trial on federal drug-trafficking charges, Thompson said.