Saturday, August 25, 2012
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
Judge James C. Evans has sentenced Duniek Christian, 27, of Youngstown to three years in prison for fleeing police in 2010 and imposed an eight-year driver’s license suspension on him.
The Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge imposed that sentence Thursday, after a jury trial in which Christian was convicted this summer of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer.
Christian will get credit for the 653 jail days he already has served awaiting disposition of that case.
Judge Evans made his sentence consecutive to an 18-month prison term Christian received in April from U.S. District Court Judge Dan Aaron Polster after he pleaded guilty to a federal cocaine and heroin distribution conspiracy charge.
In the case in which Judge Evans imposed sentence, police said they were trying to serve felony arrest warrants on Christian in November 2010, but Christian drove his car through a fence and backyards on the city’s East Side before being captured.
In yet another criminal case, Christian still faces retrial before Judge Evans in a July 1, 2005, rolling gunbattle with police on the city’s East Side.
In 2008, a jury acquitted Christian of charges related to shooting at police, but was “unable to decide” whether Christian was guilty of complicity with the three other men shooting assault rifles at the seven police officers.