Man pleads to drug, assault charges

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of eight years for a Fairmont Avenue man after he pleaded guilty in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to drug and assault charges.

Leonard Crockett, 33, entered his guilty pleas Monday before Judge John Durkin to charges of possession of heroin and possession of cocaine and, in a separate incident, to a charge of felonious assault.

Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of seven years for the heroin charge and a year for the cocaine charge to run consecutive to each other and concurrent with an eight-year sentence for felonious assault.

A sentencing hearing has not been set.

In the drug case, Crockett was arrested early Aug. 23, 2013, as Youngstown State University and city police were running unmarked patrols on the North Side looking for suspects in a string of armed robberies near the campus.

Reports said Crockett was found by YSU police at Short Street and Emerson Place and he matched the description of one of two men who ran from city police earlier that evening. He told the YSU officers he had a small amount of marijuana on him, but when he reached in his pockets to give it to the officers, he took off and ran, reports said.

He was caught by the YSU officers on Oxford Avenue near Foster Avenue, reports said. He had quantities of heroin and crack cocaine in his possession along with three pills, a small amount of marijuana and $491 in cash, reports said.

The felonious-assault charge is for an attack on a corrections officer in the Mahoning County jail Nov. 15, 2013.