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Attorneys withdraw in East Side murder, drug case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
One of four remaining defendants in a drug and murder case on the East Side will get new attorneys.
Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court granted a motion Tuesday by attorneys for Melvin Johnson Jr., 31, to withdraw from the case.
The court will appoint new attorneys for him.
Johnson faces four counts of attempted murder, four counts of felonious assault and single counts of aggravated arson, arson, being a felon in possession of a firearm and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
He was not indicted until May 2015 for his role in the drug dealing and four homicides in 2011 and 2012 on the East Side.
Attorneys Corey Grimm and Frank Cassese, who were representing Johnson, asked the judge for permission to withdraw from the case, saying there are “irreconcilable differences” between them and Johnson, which seemed to center on claims by Johnson the two did not review discovery evidence with him or give him all the evidence available to him.
Cassese said Johnson also is occupied with a federal sentence he is serving for drug charges and his appeal.
Often, when he and Grimm tried to talk to Johnson about his state case, the conversation would turn toward the federal one and interfere with their preparation and ability to map out a strategy to attack the prosecution’s case.
Judge Durkin said Cassese and Grimm have shared all the evidence they have with Johnson, but Johnson claimed there is more evidence.
Judge Durkin, however, said Johnson has been able to see all the evidence pertaining to him.
Johnson and five others are accused of taking part in a drug ring on the East Side that was racking up profits of $1 million a year until police shut it down.
Two members of the ring authorities say acted as its enforcers, Michael Austin, 22, and Hakeem Henderson, 24, were tried and convicted in May for their role in two homicides in 2011 and a double homicide in 2012 as part of the ring.
Henderson was convicted of two of the murders and Austin of all four.
Austin received sentences of life with no parole.
Henderson received a sentence of 36 years to life in prison.
The ring’s leader, Dewyalyn Colvin, 34, also is charged with the four murders and is expected to go on trial later this year. He was indicted with Colvin and Henderson.
Indicted in May 2015 with Johnson were Nahdia Baker, 29, and Vincent Moorer, 32.
Testimony in the trials of Austin and Henderson showed that Moorer was also heavily involved in drug dealing with the others.
Moorer, Johnson and Baker are accused of setting fire to a car at a rival’s home on the West Side in May 2014. When people came outside to see what was going on, the three then fired AK-47 assault rifles at their homes, police said.