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Three enter pleas in Winona Drive homicide
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Three men entered pleas in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Monday for their role in the death of a 17-year-old during a brawl between two families last August.
Dequann Fleeton, 21, pleaded no contest to charges of aggravated riot and involuntary manslaughter; David Belton, 33, pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated riot, aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter; and Rontrell White, 27, pleaded no contest to charges of aggravated riot and involuntary manslaughter.
Fleeton and White were found guilty by Judge Lou D’Apolito after their pleas. Sentencing for all three has not yet been set. All three were set to go on trial Monday in the death of Shawn Cortez, who was killed during the brawl on Winona Drive.
It was White who took the longest, first balking at accepting a plea, then deciding to plead guilty, then balking again, then changing his mind and pleading no contest. Judge D’Apolito warned him at the plea hearing that he would not allow him to take his plea back once he made it on the record.
Assistant Prosecutor Martin Desmond said Cortez was killed during a prearranged fight Aug. 17 that was set up by text message and Facebook after a fight the day before between the two families. Desmond said the two groups had been arguing for more than a year.
Cortez was in a home on Winona Drive with other people, including Fleeton, White and Belton, when the other group came onto the street looking to fight. At first that group left, then was challenged in the street to fight by the group Cortez was in. That group ran after the first group, and several shots were fired, one of which struck Cortez.
There was another volley of shots right away, and Desmond said Belton chased the group to Glenwood Avenue with his gun, then fired eight rounds at them. Police collected the shell casings and matched them to a gun of his that they got a few days later, Desmond said.
The entire sequence was captured on video by two women who also pleaded guilty for their roles in the death of Cortez. All told, 14 people were charged for their roles in the brawl. Two of them, brothers Dejon Jenkins, 19, and David Jenkins, 18, have each been charged with murder in Cortez’s death.
Seven people have pleaded guilty for their part in the death of Cortez. Three more trials are set to begin next week.
One issue for White was the involuntary manslaughter charge, in which prosecutors have to prove that White should have foreseen — because there was a fight he participated in where people had guns — that someone may die.
White’s attorney, Doug Taylor, said though his client entered the no-contest plea, he denies having any knowledge that his actions would have resulted in someone’s death.
“He’s not going to come in at sentencing and say he had an idea he knew this would happen,” Taylor said.
At an evidence-suppression hearing last month, White testified that he and Fleeton picked Cortez up off the street after he was wounded and drove him to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital. Along the way, they saw an ambulance, flagged it down, and the ambulance drove Cortez to the hospital and they followed.
Prosecutors opposed the no-contest pleas and also will oppose any request for judicial release, Desmond said. Desmond said he thought the two who entered no-contest pleas should have pleaded guilty because of the severity of the charges.