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Fugitive is sentenced to 93 1/2 years
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Lexter C. Williams
YOUNGSTOWN
Lexter Williams, the fugitive home-invader captured in Philadelphia, didn’t do himself any favors by fleeing.
Williams drew a 931/2-year prison term Tuesday from Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Williams, 30, of Kendis Circle, fled from electronically monitored house-arrest Nov. 18, just before he was to be sentenced for a Jan. 22, 2009, armed home-invasion in the 100 block of Livingston Street.
Judge Sweeney issued a bench warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear for his scheduled Nov. 22 sentencing, and he was captured in Philadelphia late last month and returned to Youngstown.
Williams had pleaded guilty in October to three counts of aggravated robbery, four counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated burglary and one count of gross sexual imposition with firearm specifications and to being a felon with a gun.
Williams initially was charged with rape, but that charge was reduced in the plea agreement to gross sexual imposition.
After Williams had been jailed since his January 2009 arrest, Judge Sweeney allowed him to be released for just over three weeks on his own recognizance under electronically monitored house-arrest between his plea and his scheduled sentencing date.
In the plea agreement, the prosecution agreed to recommend a 13-year prison term if Williams complied with the terms of his house arrest as he awaited sentencing.
However, the prosecution said it would recommend maximum consecutive sentences totaling 991/2 years in prison if Williams violated any laws while under house arrest or violated the house arrest itself.
At Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Williams’ lawyer, Thomas E. Zena, said his client believes he entered his plea “because of family pressure” and wanted to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial.
After Dawn Cantalamessa, an assistant county prosecutor, said the judge conducted a thorough plea hearing and called the plea withdrawal request untimely, Judge Sweeney denied that request.
Zena also said Williams appears to have committed no crimes while he was AWOL. He said Williams’ escape didn’t give the court “reason to orbit the earth” with a near-maximum consecutive set of sentences and that the sentencing shouldn’t be governed by “back-door retribution.”
“I’m not getting any kind of fair shot,” Williams said.
However, Judge Sweeney said she made it “extremely clear’’ during the plea hearing that, if Williams went AWOL, she wasn’t bound by the 13-year deal.
Williams will be arraigned on the escape charge, for which he could receive an additional two to eight years in prison, this morning in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
In the January 2009 invasion, the homeowner told police he was watching TV with his girlfriend and a male friend when three intruders entered through an unlocked door. The home owner said two of the intruders were armed, ordered the home’s occupants to the floor and demanded money.
The woman was taken to the basement and raped, police reports said. The intruders took cell phones, cash and other items, police said.
Williams fled from a traffic stop, and he and Laneer McKinney, 17, of Fairmont Avenue, were arrested on the South Side after a foot pursuit, police said. McKinney pleaded guilty to one count each of aggravated robbery and kidnapping with gun specifications and drew a seven-year prison term from Judge Sweeney.
Another participant, James D. Williams, 20 of Broadview Avenue, pleaded guilty to one count each of aggravated robbery and kidnapping and also drew a seven-year prison term from Judge Sweeney.
Judge Sweeney sentenced Lexter Williams’ girlfriend, Tamika Jones, 26, of Kendis Circle, to three years’ probation and 100 hours of community service after she pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property and unlawful possession of a dangerous ordnance (a sawed-off shotgun).
A search of Jones’ apartment turned up a camera, a cell phone, a computer game and jewelry believed to have been taken in the burglary and the sawed-off shotgun, police said.
After court Tuesday, a tearful Jones said she entered her plea deal under duress because she feared being taken away from her children to serve a five-year prison term if she went to trial and got convicted. “The stuff that we did have was gifts,” Jones said the items listed as stolen. The gun was never hers, she added.