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Judge orders drug treatment for ex-YSU coach
YOUNGSTOWN
A former Youngstown State University assistant women’s softball coach on probation for a drug conviction will spend time in an in-house treatment facility.
Gina L. Rango, 27, of Woodworth Road, North Lima, appeared Friday before Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for a hearing and pleaded guilty to a probation violation. Rango is on three years’ probation after her conviction on four felony-four counts of trafficking in drugs.
Rango violated probation by testing positive for cocaine and opiates. She also was to complete a program through TASC — Treatment Alternatives to Street Crimes — but failed to do that.
Judge Evans continued her three-year term of probation, but ordered her to in-house treatment at Community Corrections Association Inc. on Market Street for an unspecified amount of time.
In May 2010, the Mahoning Valley Drug Task Force arrested Rango at her residence. A county grand jury later indicted her on four counts of oxycodone trafficking.
Rango pleaded guilty to the charges in a deal with prosecutors.
Prosecutors have said Rango was the go-between in drug transactions for a drug dealer but did not actually sell any drugs. In exchange for her efforts, Rango would receive drugs for her own use.
Attorneys representing Rango said she became a victim of her own competitive nature because she would play her sports while in pain and eventually turned to prescription pills to help ease that pain.