Repeat Trumbull County drug offender sentenced 11 years in prison

Staff report

WARREN

Tariq Bowers, 35, of Dana Street Northeast was sentenced to 11 years in prison Tuesday after being convicted at trial in February in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court of trafficking in cocaine and heroin.

A sentencing memorandum from the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office said Bowers was charged after Warren police found 30.16 grams of cocaine and 5.3 grams of heroin April 28, 2014, in a room he was renting at the Downtown Motor Inn, 777 Mahoning Ave. N.W.

He had been renting the room since April 2, 2014, but a cleaning lady noticed something wrong with the room’s smoke detector April 28 and contacted the motel manager, who went inside and saw something resembling cocaine in a drawer on the nightstand.

Bowers had been convicted of two counts of cocaine trafficking in 1999 and was sentenced to one year in prison. The charges were enhanced because he was selling the drugs near McKinley School in Warren, the memorandum says.

He also went to prison for six years in a 2001 Trumbull County case for possessing more than 100 grams of crack cocaine.