Driver of car carrying shooter gets 25 to life

The victim was the driver’s cousin.

YOUNGSTOWN — The mother of a 3-year-old girl who was killed in a drive-by shooting said the driver must fully face the consequences of his actions.

“This man is a coward,” said Charlotte Moreland, mother of Cherish M. Moreland, who was shot to death last May 5 on the city’s East Side.

Damon K. Clark drove the car from which the shot was fired that killed “a defenseless 3-year-old baby that was his cousin,” Moreland said. “He showed no remorse. ... He deserves everything he gets,” she added.

Moreland, of Hilton Avenue, spoke Tuesday just before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced Clark to 25 years to life in prison.

On Monday, a jury convicted Clark, 23, of Dogwood Lane, of complicity to murder with a gun specification, and of complicity to discharging a firearm at or into a habitation.

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

“He was the real reason that it happened,” Cherish’s father, Damon Christian, said of Clark.

“We have an innocent 3-year-old girl, who was just standing in a front yard, who was killed for absolutely no reason,” said Robert Andrews, assistant county prosecutor.

Andrews, who alleged during the trial that Clark recruited Williams to be the gunman, asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence of 28 years to life.

But Clark’s lawyer, John Juhasz, said a 20-years-to-life sentence would give his client “plenty of time to think about what he did.”

Before the judge sentenced him, Clark said: “I cry every day. ... From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.”

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 Cherish once in the head, police reports said.