Bench trial continues in drug ring case

Staff member

YOUNGSTOWN

Testimony is continuing this week in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in the bench trial of two men accused of being part of an East Side drug ring.

Tuesday, a witness who claims he was shot at on the West Side testified against Melvin Johnson, 32, and Vincent Moorer, 30, before Judge John Durkin as well as a city police officer who responded to that shooting.

On Monday, a former Youngstown Fire Department arson investigator testified at length because of an arson the two men and a third person, Nahdia Baker, are accused of committing.

Baker is expected to go on trial shortly after the bench trial concludes.

Moorer and Johnson face charges of drug trafficking, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, aggravated arson, felonious assault and other crimes in regard to their roles in leading up the ring beginning in 2012.

Their roles purportedly began after the previous leader, DeWaylyn Colvin, 33, was indicted on drug-trafficking charges after two homicides on the East Side in 2011 touched off an investigation.

Moorer also is charged with two counts of aggravated murder in the deaths of Ryan Slade, 20, and Kierra McCullough, 19, in September of 2012.

Johnson is not facing any murder charges.

Slade and McCullough were killed as they were sitting in a car on Benford Lane on the far East Side. Prosecutors say Moorer ordered the hit because Slade was rude to Moorer’s girlfriend.

Colvin is to go on trial later on murder charges in the case involving the Slade and McCullough homicides as well as two others.

Two other men, Michael Austin, 23, and Hakeem Henderson, 25, were convicted in March 2016 of the four murders and are serving lengthy prison sentences.

Testimony in the case began last Thursday.