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Warren homicide victim was awaiting sentencing in Youngstown in gang-related matter
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
Deon M. Sanders, 22, the man killed Tuesday night at a house on Forest Street Northeast, was wanted on an arrest warrant in a gang-related matter in Youngstown.
Sanders, of 189 E. Ravenwood and West Dennick avenues in Youngstown, was implicated in the Nov. 19, 2011, gang-related robbery of a 16-year-old boy as the boy left a school bus at South and Avondale avenues.
Sanders was one of four men described as being members of the H-Block gang involved in the incident.
Co-defendants in the case, Frankie Hudson Jr., 21, of Falls Avenue and Ruben Joel Sanchez Jr., 19, of Hilton Avenue, were sentenced to prison: Hudson for nine years, and Sanchez for 10 years. A third man, O’Keefe Brown, 20, of West Ravenwood Avenue, got a four-year prison term.
Sanders was due to be sentenced for his role in the case May 12, but he did not appear, and a warrant for his arrest was issued May 28.
He could have gotten up to 48 years in prison after pleading guilty before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney in October to three counts of aggravated robbery, one count of participating in a criminal gang and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Warren police initially did not release Sanders’ name because they were not certain of his identity. He had another person’s ID card on him at the time police found him beside the driveway at 228 Forest St. at 8:26 p.m. He had been shot multiple times.
Sanders died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. His death has been ruled a homicide, and police questioned a person of interest, but he has not been charged.
A woman who was found in the house at 228 Forest was charged with falsification, however, after she told police she had been asleep while the shooting occurred.
Carol A. Sheldon, 44, of Maryland Street, was arraigned on the misdemeanor falsification charge Thursday in Warren Municipal Court, pleading not guilty. Her bond was set at $1,500.
A warrant for her arrest was issued in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on May 6 after she failed to appear in court for a hearing on a November heroin-possession charge filed by Warren police.
She also was indicted Wednesday by a Trumbull County grand jury on five counts of corrupting another with drugs and one count of child endangering. She also pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday during her arraignment, and bond on those charges was set at $50,000. She is in the Trumbull County Jail.