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Man gets four years for having gun while on probatioon
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who admitted to having an assault rifle and hiding it in November during a police chase – while he was on probation – was sentenced Friday to four years in prison.
Damon Banks-Lopez, 22, received the sentence in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court from Judge John Durkin on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, tampering with evidence and a probation violation for possession of cocaine.
Banks-Lopez was arrested Nov. 23 after a foot chase by police who were answering a gunfire call on the South Side.
Banks pleaded guilty to having the AK-47 rifle and hiding it as he ran from police. Officers later found it.
Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Day asked Judge Durkin to sentence Banks-Lopez to eight years in prison – three years each on the weapons and tampering charge and two years on the probation violation. Day said no one with a record like Banks-Lopez should have a military style weapon such as an AK-47.
“Quite frankly, your honor, these are weapons of war,” Day said.
Defense lawyer Albert Palombaro said the sentence Day was seeking is far higher than other defendants with similar records have gotten for similar crimes.
Palombaro said his client knows he made a mistake having a gun with him, which is why he pleaded guilty. He said when Banks Lopez was running, he was running because the car he was in, his mother’s car, was shot up. The rifle belonged to the man who was in the car with him and was a suspect in shooting up a home earlier in the day.
“He’s a young man who made a serious mistake,” Palombaro said.
Catalina Lopez, the mother of Banks-Lopez, asked the judge for leniency, saying that her son never knew his father, who was killed before he was born, and that he is good at heart, but he needs to find a way to stay away from the streets.
“I think he needs to learn his lesson,” she said. “I think that he will. He needs a chance.”
Judge Durkin said Banks-Lopez is lucky to be alive and needs to make better decisions because one day he will be out of prison.
Banks-Lopez declined an opportunity to address the court.