Rankin held in drug case

The defendant was wanted on a parole violation in a robbery case out of Cuyahoga County.

YOUNGS-
TOWN — A man acquitted of murder in January was arrested on drug charges inside a house equipped with a surveillance camera, barricaded doors and police scanner.

Shon D. Rankin, 28, of Brooklyn Avenue, is scheduled for preliminary and pretrial hearings on Friday in municipal court. His new charges include possession of dangerous drugs and marijuana. When arrested, he was also served with a January 2006 warrant for his failure to appear in municipal court in a domestic violence case.

Rankin remains in the Mahoning County Jail, unable to post $30,000 bond.

On Jan. 11, a jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court acquitted Rankin in the shooting death of Raymond Hayes. Hayes, 32, was shot in the back at 2:40 a.m. outside Larry’s Lounge on Hillman Street on June 9, 2001.

Rankin was retried last month after the first trial in July 2007 resulted in a hung jury. He had been secretly indicted in February 2007 after a jail inmate gave prosecutors a statement for direct presentment to a county grand jury, according to Vindicator files.

Ohio Adult Parole Authority officers, along with members of the Street Crimes Unit, went to Rankin’s house last Tuesday to arrest him on a parole violation. Records show Rankin is on parole in Cuyahoga County in an armed robbery case to which he pleaded guilty and was sent to prison in August 2002. He was released from prison in May 2005 and placed on three years’ probation.

During a search of the home, police noted — and photographed — front and rear doors barricaded with 2-by-4s and reinforced with steel. Officers also found a camera mounted to the front porch and a police scanner on the kitchen counter.

“Typical of security measures utilized to secure drug houses,” Detective Sgt. Kevin Mercer, head of the Street Crimes Unit, said in his report.

In a kitchen closet, police found two large bags of marijuana, and a small bag of marijuana in a cabinet. Assorted controlled narcotics were found in a small bag in the cabinet and a digital scale with cocaine residue was on top the cabinet, police said.

Upstairs, more marijuana was found in a bedroom dresser, reports show.