Vice cops find cash, guns crack, at two separate homes

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Members of the city police department’s Vice Squad serving search warrants investigating drug activity Tuesday found more than $2,000 at one home and 19 bags of suspected crack cocaine at another.

The raids culminated in several arrests, and those people were arraigned Wednesday in Youngstown Municipal Court before Magistrate Anthony Sertick.

The cash was found at an 807 Delaware Ave. home on the North Side about 6:10 p.m., where four people were taken into custody.

Reports said officers found $1,868 and a bag of suspected marijuana in the purse of Bianca Pressley, 21, of Upland Avenue. An additional $252 cash was found on Denzel Johnson, 21, of Superior Avenue.

Also in the home, officers found suspected crack cocaine, a scale, pills and a loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol, reports said.

Pressley and Johnson were taken to the Mahoning County jail on drug charges as were Brandon Johnson, 23, also of Superior Avenue, and David Tribble, 53, of Stewart Avenue. Tribble was arrested after he drove away as police approached and stopped in the parking lot of a Belmont Avenue store.

Bonds for Pressley and both Johnsons were set at more than $20,000 because all three were in the house where the suspected cocaine was found, said Assistant City Prosecutor Jeffrey Moliterno.

Molterno said the amount of crack found inside was so large that all three face a first-degree felony charge of possession of crack cocaine. A first-degree felony is the state’s highest-level felony. Denzel Johnson’s bond was set at $50,000.

Bond for Tribble was set at $15,000.

Reports said Tribble reached under his car as if he were hiding something, and police found a crack pipe, reports said. He is charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and felony possession of drugs.

About 4:50 p.m., at a 556 Parkcliff Ave. home on the South Side, police found 19 bags of suspected crack cocaine, four crack pipes and a suboxone strip. Arrested there was Frankie Reese, 65. Lorenzo Hendrix, 40, of Ferndale Avenue, was in a car in front of the home when police pulled up and drove away. Police later pulled him over in the 600 block of Ferndale Avenue and found two bags of suspected crack cocaine on him.