Judge issues more prison sentences in LSP case

Staff report

CLEVELAND

Several defendants who pleaded guilty in the LSP gang-conspiracy case recently have been sent to prison by U.S. District Court Judge Donald C. Nugent.

Drawing the longest prison term was Richard Ivy, who got seven years. The others going to federal prison are Wayne Kerns, 61 months; Ryan Davis, 46 months; Van Lightning, 35 months; and Tyrell Oliver and James Neail, 33 months each.

All will be on supervised release for three years after prison.

In sentencing Neail on Thursday, Judge Nugent agreed to recommend to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons that he be housed in the Federal Correctional Institution at Elkton, which is in Columbiana County.

These defendants are among 23 named in a 42-count indictment in March 2011 for their reported involvement with the LSP gang.

LSP stands for LaClede, Sherwood, Parkview and Princeton avenues in the Idora Neighborhood on Youngstown’s South Side, where the gang was active between 2003 and 2011, the U.S. attorney said.

The LSP gang used violence, including attempted murder, to control territory and sell heroin, cocaine and other drugs, prosecutors said.

Four Youngstown men, who were convicted of conspiracy to commit racketeering in a three-week federal jury trial in June in the LSP case, are facing prison terms of 14 or more years when they are sentenced at 9 a.m. Sept. 28.

They are Daquann Hackett and Derrick Johnson, both 22, who the U.S. attorney said were gang leaders, and Terrence Machen and Edward Campbell, both 21.