Driver in shooting sentenced

‘If I could bring him back, I would,’ the defendant said of his victim.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — The driver of a sport-utility vehicle, from which a man was fatally shot more than 13 months ago on the city’s East Side, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the sentence Tuesday on Jason O. Clay, 24, of Winona Avenue for the drive-by shooting in the 1400 block of Woodcrest Avenue.

Clay had earlier pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter with a gun specification in the June 26, 2007, death of Terrance E. Brown, 27, of South Truesdale Avenue, who the prosecution said was an innocent bystander.

The sentence is nonappealable because it was agreed upon by the prosecution and the defense and adopted by the judge.

Martin P. Desmond, assistant county prosecutor, recommended that Clay be sentenced to nine years for the manslaughter, plus a mandatory consecutive three years for the gun specification. Clay will get credit for 387 days he’s already been jailed.

The prosecution agreed to reduce the charges (from complicity to aggravated murder with a five-year gun specification) because he was the driver, not the shooter; because witnesses said someone fired at the SUV before the fatal shooting; and because Clay is cooperating with the prosecution on two other criminal cases.

“I’m truly sorry for whatever took place ... If I could bring him back, I would,” Clay said of Brown during the sentencing hearing, which Brown’s family did not attend.

Last December, Judge Evans sentenced Clay’s cousin, Jonathan L. Clay, 24, of Winona Avenue, who fired the shot that killed Brown, to 35 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him of aggravated murder with a gun specification.

Brown died instantly after being hit in the neck by a shotgun blast from the SUV.

The Clays were arrested in July 2007 in East Liverpool. Youngstown and East Liverpool police investigated the case.