Last two members of E Block gang enter guilty pleas

August 3, 2015 at 7:30p.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The last of 12 members of a West Side street gang who had yet to plead guilty to gang and other charges entered guilty pleas on Monday, the day their trials were to begin.

Laytton Shepherd, 22, of South Lakeview Avenue, entered guilty pleas in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of felonious assault, trafficking in counterfeit controlled substances and participating in a criminal gang. He was sentenced immediately to six years in prison by Judge Lou D’Apolito.

Judge D’Apolito also accepted a guilty plea to a single count of aggravated riot by Roderick Wilson, 28, of Warwick Avenue. He will be sentenced at a later date. Prosecutors are recommending probation.

Wilson, Shepherd, and 10 others were rounded up in May 2014 as prosecutors and police said they were members of the E Block, which operated around the Evanston, Lakeview and Portland avenues on lower Mahoning Avenue on the West Side.

Assistant Prosecutor Martin Desmond said Shepherd was one of several gang members who beat and robbed a pair of men outside a lower Mahoning Avenue bar in September 2013. Desmond said Shepherd and another member of the gang had walked around a corner and saw the two men from the bar fighting with other gang members, so they jumped in.