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Jurors spare Lanier death in ’05 rape, killing
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Antwon Lanier talks to his attorney, James Gentile, in the murder case in Judge John Durkins courtroom.
YOUNGSTOWN — Antwon Lanier has escaped the death penalty, but his prison term for his role in the rape and slaying of Sierra Y. Slaton could last several decades.
After 15 hours of deliberations over two days, a six-man, six-woman jury found Lanier, 26, of Mahoning County jail, guilty of complicity to the murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery of Slaton and guilty of raping her.
The jury, which had been sequestered Thursday night in a hotel, returned its verdict Friday afternoon; and Lanier will be sentenced by Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
The coroner ruled Slaton, 19, of Vestal Road, died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head on Aug. 6, 2005, the day before her body was found floating in McKelvey Lake.
“It’s been four long years,” said Rose Slaton, mother of the victim, who was her only child. “I have so much gratitude for what happened here today because they could not let him [Lanier] go. They just couldn’t. My baby didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to her.”
“I almost thought the death penalty [by lethal injection] was too good for him,” the victim’s mother said of Lanier after the judge read the verdict.
“He needs to experience some of the pain that I’ve experienced in the last four years, and, just putting him to death, he wouldn’t do that,” she added. Slaton said Lanier should be sentenced to maximum, consecutive prison terms for all of his crimes.
Lanier initially had been indicted on an aggravated murder charge with death-penalty specifications, but the jury spared his life by convicting him of the lesser-included offense of complicity to murder, which carries a prison term of 15 years to life.
His convictions for rape and for complicity to kidnapping and aggravated robbery each carry three to 10 years in prison, so he could be sentenced to as many as 45 years to life in prison if the judge were to make all sentences maximum and consecutive.
The jury acquitted Lanier of all firearm specifications.
Lanier is serving a 21-year prison term imposed by Judge Durkin in an unrelated case, in which he was convicted of aggravated robbery and felonious assault with a firearm specification.
The judge could make Lanier’s sentence for the crimes against Slaton either concurrent with, or consecutive to, the prison time in the other case.
The prosecution said Lanier and his co-defendant, Antonio Jackson, 28, of Summer Street, raped Slaton in South Side Park before Jackson shot her on the shore of McKelvey Lake and dumped her in the water.
Jackson’s jury trial on charges of aggravated murder with firearm and death-penalty specifications, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and rape is to begin Oct. 16 before Judge Durkin, who had declared a mistrial in Jackson’s case in March.
Lanier’s lead defense lawyer, James S. Gentile, said an appeal will likely be filed.
milliken@vindy.com