Man gets 18 months on drug conviction

Staff report

CLEVELAND

An East Side man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison on a federal charge of conspiring to distribute heroin and cocaine.

Duniek Christian, 27, of North Garland Avenue, who pleaded guilty to the charge, drew the sentence Thursday from U.S. District Court Judge Dan Aaron Polster. Christian’s prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release.

Christian was one of 25 Youngstown-area residents named in a federal grand jury indictment last June. The drug sales occurred on Youngstown’s East Side and in Campbell, authorities said.

Thirty-seven additional defendants were indicted on state charges.

On Tuesday, Judge Polster will sentence 16 defend- ants, who pleaded guilty to various charges in the 61-count federal indictment.

One federal defendant, Richard N. Ramos, who pleaded guilty to the same charge as Christian, was sentenced to three years’ probation April 5.

Christian is no stranger to the justice system.

Christian awaits a May 21 retrial in the courtroom of Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in a 2005 rolling gunbattle with police on Youngstown’s East Side.

In August 2008, a jury deadlocked on whether Christian was guilty of complicity to felonious assault in that case.