Woman arrested in front of courthouse
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A woman was arrested on heroin-trafficking charges after she drove a man to the Mahoning County Courthouse on Wednesday morning for his sentencing hearing.
Latesha Hines, 26, of Himrod Avenue, is in the county jail on charges of trafficking in heroin and driving under suspension. She is expected to be arraigned in municipal court Friday.
Records from common pleas court show she was placed on probation for trafficking in heroin by Judge R. Scott Krichbaum in May.
She was placed on three years’ probation, and her driver’s license was suspended for a year.
Maj. Jeff Allen, of the sheriff’s office, said that Hines came into the courthouse about 9:15 a.m. with 20-year-old Charles Allen, no relation, of Austintown, who was set to be sentenced by Judge James C. Evans for a probation violation and other charges.
Allen said that deputies working the door asked Hines to move her car, which she parked in front of the courthouse in a lane reserved for law-enforcement vehicles.
Hines told deputies she would move the car as long as Charles Allen did not come with her.
Charles Allen, however, followed her out to her car as she tried to move it and tried to get in.
He was able to make it inside before the car turned around at Market and Front streets, Maj. Allen said.
Deputies from the courthouse security detail went out into the street and stopped the car in the northbound lanes of Market Street in front of the federal courthouse and across the street from the county courthouse.
A search of Hines’ purse found 5 grams of heroin inside, Maj. Allen said.
Charles Allen was sentenced to 15 months in prison by Judge Evans on charges of aggravated vehicular assault, failure to comply and a probation violation from a 2012 case.