Youngstown man gets 15-year federal prison term for selling drugs

YOUNGSTOWN — A man who police said had $500,000 worth of heroin after police raided a McHenry Street home in December 2015 was sentenced today to 15 years in federal prison.

The sentence was handed down in the U.S. Northern District Court Of Ohio by Judge Dan Aaron Polster in Cleveland to Phillip Lemon, 28, who pleaded guilty in November to charges of conspiracy to possess and sell heroin, conspiracy to possess and sell fentanyl and a specification that he had weapons with him even though he is barred from having weapons because of previous drug convictions.

The drugs and guns were found when members of the Youngstown Police Department’s vice squad served a search warrant Dec. 10, 2015, at the McHenry Street home investigating drug activity. The heroin weighed almost three pounds, police said.

Lemon was not in the home at the time and eluded police until May. He was arraigned on trafficking charges in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, but those charges were dropped when the federal government indicted him. He has a prior federal drug conviction as well as a conviction in common pleas court for being a member of a West Side street gang.

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