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Lanier sentenced, faces more charges
Lanier was already serving a 21-year prison term in an unrelated case.
YOUNGSTOWN — Rose Slaton expressed satisfaction with the maximum consecutive sentences totalling 55 years to life in prison, which Judge John M. Durkin imposed on Antwon Lanier in the rape and slaying of Slaton’s daughter, Sierra
“I don’t want him to hurt anybody else. ... No other family should go through what I went through,” Slaton said soon after the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge pronounced sentence.
The body of Sierra Slaton, 19, of Vestal Road, was found floating in McKelvey Lake on Aug. 7, 2005, the day after she was fatally shot.
“Her birthday was April 6. I had to sing happy birthday to her picture,” Slaton told the judge during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.
A jury found Lanier guilty Friday of complicity to the murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery of Slaton and guilty of raping her in a case that, coincidentally, bore the number 06cr666.
The judge imposed 15 years to life in prison on the complicity-to-murder charge, and 10 years each on the complicity to aggravated robbery charge, the two counts of complicity-to-kidnapping and the rape charge.
Lanier, 26, escaped the death penalty because the jury didn’t convict him of the aggravated murder charge he originally faced, convicting him instead of the lesser included offense of complicity to murder.
The judge made the prison time in the Slaton case consecutive to a 21-year prison term he had earlier imposed on Lanier in an unrelated armed robbery and felonious assault case.
Rape and intimidation charges stemming from yet another incident, which allegedly occurred outside a South Side bar, are still pending against Lanier in Judge Durkin’s court.
Beginning Oct. 16, Judge Durkin will preside over the capital murder trial of Antonio Jackson, 28, of Summer Street, who prosecutors say fatally shot Slaton.
Citing Lanier’s criminal history and extensive discipline record in jail and prison, Jennifer McLaughlin Smith, an assistant county prosecutor, told the judge consecutive sentences are needed to punish Lanier and protect the public from his likely future crimes.
However, James S. Gentile, Lanier’s lead defense lawyer, called for concurrent sentences, citing Lanier’s low intelligence and history of mental illness, the lack of evidence that Lanier had a gun and what Gentile called Lanier’s lack of control in the events leading to Slaton’s death.
Because of his forthcoming appeal, Gentile said he advised Lanier to make no comment at the sentencing; and Lanier stood silent.
“Sierra Slaton did nothing to deserve what happened to her,” Judge Durkin said before imposing sentence and ordering that Lanier be treated in prison for his mental illness.
“The harm was so great or unusual that a single term does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the conduct,” the judge said, explaining his decision to stack Lanier’s prison terms consecutively. “Your criminal history shows that consecutive terms are needed to protect the public,” the judge told Lanier.
Gentile said he expects Lanier’s appeal will claim that the DNA testing method used to support the rape charge against Lanier provided insufficient evidence to sustain the rape conviction, which Gentile said was the foundation for Lanier’s other convictions in the Slaton case.
milliken@vindy.com