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Youngstown honor society candidate gets year on heroin charges
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
It’s safe to say not to many people appear before Judge Shirley J. Christian sporting a 3.77 grade point average and an invitation to join the National Honor Society.
Though the judge told 33-year-old Robert Thurston of Lenox Avenue that she was impressed with his academic prowess, she also told him as he appeared Tuesday for sentencing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on drug trafficking charges that she has far too many people before her who are ravaged by drugs – either as addicts or as a victim of a crime committed by an addict.
She sentenced Thurston to a year in prison on a third-degree felony charge of trafficking in heroin as well as a fifth-degree charge of trafficking in heroin.
“I see people here every day with drug problems,” Judge Christian said. “I can’t overlook the seriousness of you trafficking in heroin.”
Thurston’s wife, Denise Thurston, was sentenced to two years’ probation in the same case after she pleaded guilty to a charge of permitting drug abuse, a fifth-degree felony.
Assistant Prosecutor Mary Beth DiGravio asked for prison time because Robert Thurston has one previous felony and one misdemeanor drug conviction in Ohio and was on probation for a drug offense in Pennsylvania when he was arrested by members of the Youngstown Police Department’s vice squad, which served a search warrant at his home Jan. 22, 2014. DiGravio said police received a tip that drugs were being sold from the home, and after several undercover buys, police got the warrant and served it.
Reports said officers found 10 small bags of heroin, four other bags of heroin, two individual doses of heroin, 16 pills, three bags of marijuana, a digital scale and a metal press, more than $300 cash and a revolver.
Defense attorney Tom Zena asked for a nonprison sentence for Robert Thurston, He said Thurston and his wife run a business together and have for several years. He said his client has continued his college education even after he was arrested and has the high grade-point-average and the invitation to join the National Honor Society. He said that shows that Thurston has learned his lesson and that he is not a typical drug defendant because he has a future.
Thurston said he has been raising himself since he was 17, and he sold drugs because he was trying to survive and also because he spent time with the wrong people. He told the judge he stays away from those people and concentrates on his job and family, including his children, and that his school work proves he can make a success of himself now that he has learned his lesson.
“I never thought I’d be invited to join Phi Betta Kappa or the National Honor Society,” Thurston said.
Judge Christian said that though she appreciates the work he is doing, she also must look at his past. Besides having three drug convictions, she said another influence on sentencing Thurston to prison is the fact that he was on probation when charged in this case.