Man has gun, weapons charges bound over to grand jury
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who has spent 17 of the past 20 years in prison had gun and drug charges against him bound over Friday to a Mahoning County grand jury.
Judge Robert Milich made the decision after a preliminary hearing for Lawrence Johnson, 51, of Wirt Street, in municipal court.
Johnson was arrested Aug. 12 when police responded to a call for a fight in the parking lot of a store in the 700 block of Belmont Avenue. Reports said officers found a loaded 9 mm handgun and 2.7 grams of heroin inside an empty SUV in the parking lot that had an open door. Officers also found mail belonging to Johnson inside the SUV.
Officer George Anderson, who answered the call Aug. 12, testified that when he saw the SUV with the driver’s door open and the engine running, he asked if the vehicle belonged to anyone. Anderson said Johnson denied the SUV was his, but when he went to investigate why the door was open and the engine was running, Johnson tried to get to the SUV before him.
“Mr. Johnson almost me knocked me over trying to get to the driver’s door before I did,” Anderson said.
Anderson said another officer who checked the SUV on the other side saw the handgun in plain view on the passenger’s seat. Anderson said officers then searched the vehicle and found 11 doses of heroin in the center console.
Anderson said someone called a phone that was found in the SUV and also asked for Johnson.
Another officer who was called to the scene, Christopher Staley, testified that he saw the door of the SUV open and the keys were in the ignition but he did not think the SUV was running.
Officer Brian Voitus of the vice squad testified that he test fired the gun and it was found to be working. Voitus also testified that the squad tested the suspected heroin, and the test came back positive.
Court records from Trumbull County Common Pleas Court show Johnson was sentenced to seven years in prison in November 1997 after being convicted of a 2005 robbery.
Records from that case do not show when he was released, but he was arrested again in September 2004 by Liberty police after he was accused of robbing a gas station with another man.
In that case, Johnson pleaded guilty to charges of complicity to commit aggravated robbery with firearm and repeat violent-offender specifications, and improper handling of firearms in a motor vehicle. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Judge W. Wyatt McKay.
Court records show Johnson was released from prison Sept. 6, 2014.