Bench trial ends in East Side drug ring case

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A bench trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for two men accused of several crimes as members of an East Side drug ring wrapped up Thursday.

Judge John Durkin is expected to render his verdicts in the case Monday.

Melvin Johnson, 32, and Vincent Moorer, 30, are charged with aggravated arson, drug trafficking, engaging in a pattern of drug activity, felonious assault and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Moorer faces an additional two counts of aggravated murder for the September 2012 slayings of Ryan Slade, 20, and Kiera McCullough, 19, as they sat in a car on Benford Lane on the East Side. Prosecutors said Moorer ordered the killing of Slade because Slade was rude to his girlfriend. McCullough was in the wrong place at the wrong time, prosecutors said.

Their roles 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, prosecutors said.

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.

Nahdia Baker, 30, is expected to go on trial for the same charges Johnson faced shortly.