Warren man convicted of drug possession eight years after being charged

Staff report

WARREN

Anthony J. Hudson, 41, of 5th Street Southwest, was convicted of cocaine possession after a two-day trial and will be sentenced later to between three and 10 years in prison.

It took a jury in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court only two hours Tuesday afternoon to decide Hudson was guilty, though this case has been anything but quick.

Hudson was first charged in late 2006 after the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force conducted an undercover investigation using an informant, who bought crack cocaine at a house in the 1000 block of Miller Street Southwest.

While serving a search warrant at the Miller Street address, police found 27 grams of crack cocaine. A Trumbull County grand jury later declined to indict Hudson on the charge, but prosecutors presented the case again in May 2009, and this time he was indicted.

In closing arguments Tuesday, Hudson’s attorney, Jeffrey Limbian, said prosecutors failed to prove that the crack cocaine belonged to Hudson, saying it’s also plausible that the drugs belonged to Hudson’s brother.

Morrow argued that if they did belong to his brother, his brother could have testified on Anthony Hudson’s behalf, admitting to that because the statute of limitations has run out on filing charges against his brother.