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Man gets three and a half years on gang, weapons charges
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Judge Lou D’Apolito agreed with defense counsel for a man being sentenced Thursday on gang and weapons charges that the gang Jevon Fitzgerald admitted being a part of was not exactly a criminal organization on par with the Mafia or the Hell’s Angels.
The judge said, however, said the group was not benign, either.
“I know it’s not the Hell’s Angels,” said Judge D’Apolito in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. “But I also know it’s not the Boy Scouts.”
Jevon Fitzgerald, 22, of McGuffey Road, was sentenced to 31/2 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and participating in criminal gang activity.
Fitzgerald was one of 12 members of the E Block street gang who were indicted and rounded up in May 2014.
Assistant Prosecutor Martin Desmond said that only two of the 12 members of the gang have pending cases. They are expected to go on trial later this summer.
The sentence was agreed upon by defense attorneys and Desmond. Desmond said the sentence is appropriate because Fitzgerald was on probation to Judge D’Apolito on a misdemeanor weapons charge at the time he was arrested on the gang charges. Desmond said Fitzgerald also has juvenile offenses of breaking and entering and burglary.
Members of the gang faced charges ranging from aggravated robbery, felonious assault, trafficking in cocaine, trafficking in heroin, trafficking in counterfeit controlled substances, aggravated riot and participating in a criminal gang. Their base of operations was on lower Mahoning Avenue in the area of Evanston, Maryland and Lakeview avenues.
Fitzgerald was arrested in an East Side home during the roundup, where officers found several weapons.
Fitzgerald declined to address the court before he was sentenced.
His attorney, Rhys Cartwright-Jones, told the judge that the group Fitzgerald was purported to have been a part of was more of a organization that sprang up because of the roots of the members in the neighborhood and was not formed just for the purpose of instigating criminal activity.
Judge D’Apolito said he could agree with that, but added that it is clear from the indictments handed down against the members that they did participate in criminal activity.