43
Man who served 15 years for selling drugs caught selling again
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
After being released from federal prison in 2014 after serving about 15 years for drug trafficking, Gerald Moxley Jr. told a city magistrate that the $3,000 police found on his kitchen table Wednesday was all he had.
It was taken by police.
Speaking to Magistrate Anthony Sertick from the Mahoning County jail, where he was being arraigned on drug charges via video hookup Friday, Moxley, 44, said he works two part-time jobs but had no money to hire a lawyer because police took all the money.
Police served a search warrant at his 611 Lee Ave. home about 7 p.m. Wednesday investigating drug activity.
“Every dollar that I ever made – every cent – was taken,” Moxley said.
Sertick set Moxley’s bond at $150,000 and the bond for his son, Gerald Moxley III, 23, at $10,000 after the pair were arrested by members of the vice squad.
City Prosecutor Dana Lantz said the haul police got from the home is large.
“This is the largest amount of drugs found in recent history,” Lantz said.
Inside the home, police found 11 bags of cocaine, 18 bags of crack cocaine and 20 bags of heroin.
There also were other items in the home that indicated an amphetamine-like substance, Lantz said. She said it is being tested further to determine if it is methamphetamine.
Lantz said the elder Moxley was given a federal prison sentence of 240 months plus 10 years of supervised release. He was released from federal prison in 2014. Court files show he originally was sentenced to life in prison in October 1998 by a federal judge but resentenced in April 1999 to the 240 months. Although an appeal was filed, the results of the appeal are not available, and the resentencing entry does not state why Moxley was resentenced.
The elder Moxley was charged in Mahoning County with felony-level drug trafficking three times in 1995 and 1996, but each time he was sentenced to probation, so he was prosecuted federally on his last charge because of the tough federal drug-sentencing laws.
Sertick denied the request by Gerald Moxley III for a court-appointed lawyer on his fifth-degree felony charge of possession of drugs because he has a full-time job, and because of the $3,000 on the table and an additional $280 that police found.
But the magistrate did agree to a request for a lawyer for the elder Moxley, who said all the money from his part-time jobs goes to rent and utilities. He faces first- and second-degree felony counts of possession of drugs.
“That was everything,” Moxley Jr. said of the money police found. “I know it don’t sound like the truth, but I was being honest with you. It’s over.”
Lantz said that the time in prison did not change Moxley Jr. much.
“He has been out of prison for less than a year and he is already at a felony one level,” Lantz said.