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One arrested in three South Side robberies Thursday
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
One person was arrested after a robbery Thursday on the South Side. Then, shortly after, two more robberies took place on the same side of town, reports said.
Joseph Nance, 35, of Elm Street, was arraigned Friday in municipal court on charges of aggravated robbery and possession of drugs after he was arrested about 6:20 p.m. Thursday underneath the porch of a vacant home in the 500 block of Pasadena Avenue.
Magistrate Anthony Sertick set his bond at $75,000. City Prosecutor Dana Lantz said during Nance’s arraignment he served four years in prison for a 2012 aggravated-robbery conviction.
Reports said police were called to South and East Dewey avenues, where a man said he was on the porch of his home when someone pulled in his drive, stuck a gun in his side and demanded money.
Reports said the victim gave the man $100 and a bottle of his prescription pain pills. The man ran away, and the victim ran after him, reports said.
Police tracked the man, later identified as Nance, with help from a police dog and a citizen, to the Pasadena home.
Reports said when Nance was dragged from underneath the porch, $100 cash and a pill bottle with no label fell out of his clothes. Underneath the porch, police said they found a wallet, a bottle of pills with the victim’s name on it and a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun.
According to a police report, on the way to the Mahoning County jail, Nance told police the victim is a pill dealer and he was attempting to rob him but did not use a gun to do so, reports said. Lantz said that an additional charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm is expected to be added at a later date.
After Nance was arrested, police reported two other armed robberies about the same time.
About 9:10 p.m., a man walking home at Rosedale Avenue and Cohasset Drive told police two males wearing hooded sweatshirts and holding guns approached him and took his cellphone.
Police found the man’s keys in the street, reports said.
At 9:15 p.m., a man told police he was walking into his home in the 500 block of West Evergreen Avenue when two males wearing hoodies and holding guns walked up to him as he was walking into his home and took his wallet.