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E Block member gets six year prison term
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
The attorney for a man being sentenced in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for being part of a West Side street gang Wednesday said his client is not a typical gang member.
Michael Kivlighan, the lawyer for 20-year-old Tyrone Gordon of North Brockway Avenue, said his client is soft-spoken and plans to get his general equivalency diploma while he is in prison. He said his client fell in with the wrong people due to a lack of education and a poor economy.
“He does not fit the stereotypical gangbanger type person,” Kivlighan said. “He made some poor choices and he made some poor decisions.”
Gordon was sentenced to six years in prison by Judge Lou A D’Apolito on charges of trafficking in cocaine, trafficking in a counterfeit controlled substance, two counts of felonious assault, two counts of aggravated robbery, possession of heroin and participation in criminal gang activity with gang specifications to all the counts.
The sentence was jointly recommended by Assistant Prosecutor Martin Desmond and Kivlighan. Gordon entered guilty pleas to those charges Dec. 22.
Prosecutors say Gordon was a member of the E Block Gang, which got its name from Evanston Avenue on the lower West Side, and the gang also operated in the Portland and Maryland avenues in that part of the city,
Kivlighan disagreed with Desmond’s characterization of the group as an “organized” criminal gang, but he did say his client was complicit in taking part in illegal activities.
The felonious-assault and aggravated-robbery charges come from an attack on two men who were leaving a Mahoning Avenue bar, Desmond said. Desmond said they were beaten and their watches and keys were taken. Both suffered significant injuries and one of the men was hospitalized, Desmond said.
Judge D’Apolito said he will consider judicial release when Gordon is eligible, but that Gordon must behave himself in prison. He said he wants Gordon to present him with a plan for his future.
The judge said Gordon could still live a long and happy life if he stays out of trouble. He said keeping up the same activity can lead to only two outcomes in the future: death or prison.
“At some point, you have to remove yourself from the equation,” Judge D’Apolito said.