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Man in Little Detroit operation gets six years
Detroit man will spend 77 months in prison
By Joe Gorman
warreN
One of the men investigators say was a component of a drug ring in Warren was sentenced Tuesday to more than six years in prison.
Valentino Thomas Sr., 42, of Detroit, was given a sentence of 77 months by Judge Donald C. Nugent of the U.S. Northern District Court of Ohio in Cleveland.
He had entered a guilty plea in May to a charge of conspiracy with intent to distribute, and to distribute heroin, cocaine and cocaine base.
Thomas was one of 55 people indicted on drugs and weapons charges in federal court in April 2013 in an investigation dubbed “Little D’Town,” because of the connections between drug dealers from Detroit and Warren.
An additional 42 people in the case were charged in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
The indictments capped a yearlong investigation by several federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
Thomas was charged with three counts to distribute drugs, but the other two counts were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea.
He is accused of selling 9.9 grams of heroin to an undercover officer on Nov. 9, 2012, two days before the Nov. 11, 2012, murder of Marco Dukes outside an apartment building near Elm Road Northeast in downtown Warren.
The two men charged with Dukes’ murder are also from Detroit.
During the investigation, 155 firearms were seized, some of them through a scheme where agents set up a fake business and reached out to people who dealt with illegal firearms.
In a sentencing memorandum prepared for Judge Nugent by Thomas’ attorney, William McGinty of Cleveland, McGinty asked for leniency because of his client’s tough childhood.
McGinty writes that his client was abused by his mother and raised by an aunt who died when he was 8.
He was then sent to foster care for four years, where his foster mother abused him as well.
Three of Thomas’ brothers have been killed since 2005, and his mother also died in 2010, McGinty wrote. He also said his client has pledged to undergo counseling to deal with his past, and substance abuse counseling to deal with drug and alcohol addiction that has contributed to his crimes.