2 more sentenced in Little D'Town case

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Two more members of the “Little D-Town” investigation that resulted in a wave of federal and state indictments last April were sentenced Wednesday in the U.S. Northern District Court of Ohio.

Anthony Ector, 30, and Bryan Sennyk, 34, both of Warren, each had pleaded guilty to a charge of possession with intent to distribute and to distribute heroin, cocaine and cocaine base.

Ector received a sentence of 55 months in federal prison while Sennyk was given a sentence of time served and placed on probation. Records did not indicate how much time he had served.

Sentencing for Bret Jones, 30, of Bristolville, was also set for Wednesday but was continued.

Another person, Valentino Thomas Sr., 42, of Detroit, was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison on the same charge.

The four are part of 55 people indicted by the federal government in April 2013 in an operation dubbed “Little D-Town” because of the connections between drug dealers from Warren and Detroit.

Besides undercover drug buys, law enforcement also set up a sting operation by operating a fake business and buying illegal guns from people.

About 155 firearms were seized during the investigation, which took about a year to complete and involved law enforcement on the federal, state and local levels. An additional 42 people were indicted in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court as part of the investigation.