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Three sentenced to probation for impersonating federal officers
CLEVELAND
Three Youngstown residents have been put on probation after a jury convicted them of impersonating federal law-enforcement officers.
Laroy Dock, 58, was placed on three years’ probation with four months of electronically monitored house arrest.
Milton Willis, 53, and Quin Willis, 50, were put on two years’ probation but may ask for early termination of that supervision if they behave well during the first year.
Judge Donald C. Nugent of U.S. District Court imposed the sentences Tuesday after the defendants were convicted in an April jury trial.
The defendants appeared in a courthouse July 27, 2011, pretending to be U.S. constables and wearing clothing indicating they were federal law- enforcement officers, the indictment says.
Two other counts in the indictment were filed against Dock, saying he pretended to be a U.S. constable and bought “Special Constable, U.S. Government” badges in June 2009 and May 2010.
Another count in the four-count indictment says Milton Willis displayed a firearm and identification falsely indicating that he was a federal officer Oct. 9, 2009.
On July 27 and 28, 2011, Dock was in the Mahoning County Courthouse for a jury trial before Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on a fourth-degree felony state charge of carrying a concealed weapon.
Before a jury was chosen, however, Dock pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of engaging in the security-services business without a license, which is a first-degree misdemeanor.
Judge Evans imposed a six-month jail term on Dock, all of it suspended; fined him $1,000, of which $500 was suspended; and put him on two years’ probation.
“Mr. Dock has been an upstanding citizen, attempting to create his own way as an entrepreneur” in the private-security business, providing security at bars in high-crime areas of Youngstown, which usually would be unguarded, according to a sentencing memorandum from Dock’s lawyer, Robert Duffrin.
Dock didn’t intend to act in a criminal manner, and his legal troubles may have stemmed from his “mistaken beliefs,” “bad advice” or “misunderstanding of the law,” Duffrin said. The Willises helped him in his security business, Duffrin added.
Attached to Duffrin’s memorandum was a designation of Dock as a special constable in Mahoning County in 1998-99 from then area court Judge Fred H. Bailey.