Campbell man pleads guilty in fatal shooting

YOUNGSTOWN — A Campbell man has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in a July 9, 2007, fatal shooting at an East Side gasoline station.

Tremaine A. McDonald, 28, of Eastern Avenue, entered his plea Thursday in the 2:30 a.m. shooting death of Rodney Brown, 45, of Devon Avenue, in the Speed Check parking lot at Albert Street and McGuffey Road.

McDonald appeared before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who will sentence him at 9:30 a.m. April 24.

J. Michael Thompson, assistant county prosecutor, recommended a 10-year prison term for the homicide, plus the mandatory, consecutive three years for the firearm specification, for a total of 13 years.

Thompson also recommended a five-year sentence for McDonald’s being a felon with a gun to be served concurrently with the homicide sentence.

Thompson said McDonald was one of several people in a crowd of 50 to 60 people at the gas station who returned fire when a shotgun blast erupted from a passing car with unidentified occupants.

Brown, who was shot in the thigh, was “an innocent bystander,” Thompson said.

The prosecutor said he entered into the plea agreement to reduce the charge from murder to involuntary manslaughter because of the risk that a jury might have concluded McDonald fired in self-defense and acquitted him, and because the victim’s mother, who didn’t want to go through the ordeal of a trial, favored the plea agreement.

Police found the gun in a car McDonald occupied when they made a July 24 traffic stop in Youngstown and matched it with the slug recovered from Brown’s body, Thompson said.

Had he been convicted of the original murder charge, McDonald would have faced 15 years to life in prison for murder, plus the mandatory three years for the gun specification, for a total of 18 years to life.

“The plea agreement is fair and just,” said McDonald’s lawyer, J. Gerald Ingram.