Detroit man sentenced for murder committed just before he came to Warren

Staff report

DETROIT

James Cohen Jr., 25, who spent time in Warren in November 2012 with drug dealer and murderer Derrick Peete, 24, has been sentenced to 20 to 45 years in prison for the second of two murders he committed in Detroit in 2012.

Cohen killed Todd Eiland, 31, Oct. 3, 2012, about one month before he was arrested in Warren with Peete during a traffic stop.

Cohen pleaded no contest May 2 in Detroit to second-degree murder and a weapons offense in the Eiland slaying before Judge Michael M. Hathaway of Third Circuit Court in Wayne County.

On Friday, Judge Hathaway gave Cohen the sentence worked out in his plea agreement. It runs at the same time as the 25-to-35-year sentence he received in July 2013 for killing Glenn Walker, 40, of Detroit on April 8, 2012.

Cohen’s first victim suffered 22 gunshot wounds. His second victim had 29, Detroit officials said.

During the Nov. 2 traffic stop on Hazelwood Avenue in Warren conducted by the U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitives Task Force, officers confiscated $12,000 in cash.

Peete was charged with speeding. Cohen, who gave a false name, was charged with misdemeanor falsification once they learned who he really was.

Peete later was convicted of killing Marco Dukes, 32, on Nov. 11, 2012, during a notorious gunbattle near a prominent Greek church that was having Sunday services, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

Peete and Cohen both had earlier criminal convictions in Detroit.

Both also were charged federally during the year-long “Little D-town” investigation that resulted in about 100 indictments connected with drug dealing and weapons offenses.

Cohen still is under indictment in that case and is expected to enter a plea Monday to charges accusing him of drug dealing in Warren and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Peete also is still under indictment in the federal case, charged with drug dealing.