Guilty in complicity to murder of 3-year-old

YOUNGSTOWN — After 11 hours of deliberations over three days, a jury has found Damon K. Clark guilty of complicity in the murder of 3-year-old Cherish M. Moreland last May 5 on the city’s East Side.

The nine-man, three-woman jury rendered its verdict this morning before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney at the end of a trial that began Jan. 7. Clark, the driver of the car from which the fatal shot was fired, faces 20 years to life in prison when he is sentenced at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

The jury found Clark, 23, of Dogwood Lane, guilty of the complicity to murder charge with a firearm specification and guilty of complicity to discharging a firearm at or into a habitation.

However, the jury acquitted Clark of complicity to two counts of aggravated murder, one alleging he purposely caused Cherish’s death with prior calculation and design and the other specifying she was under age 13. The jury foreman declined to discuss the rationales for the verdicts after they were rendered.

The alleged gunman, Stoney Williams, 19, of Dorothy Avenue, goes on trial before Judge Sweeney on April 14.

Clark and two of his friends were asked to leave a Stewart Avenue house because they were drunk, police reports said. A few minutes later, Clark returned to Stewart Avenue at 11:08 p.m., driving the car from which Williams fired twice at a group of people standing outside, striking the Hilton Avenue girl once on the head, police reports said.