YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – A federal grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses nine people of conspiracy to sell drugs in Youngstown from July to December 2019.
The indicted are Korey K. Moody, 36; Cedric L. Sanders, 41; Matthew J. Spain, 28; Michael N. Childs Jr., 35; DeWayne McCullough, 35; Ghalayah L. LaBooth, 41; George Barnette, 37; Lamar Knox, 31; and Lawrence K. McBride, 50.
The indictment was issued on June 10 and unsealed on Wednesday.
All nine defendants are charged with conspiracy with intent to distribute and distribute cocaine, cocaine base (crack), heroin, fentanyl, fentanyl analog and methamphetamine.
US marshals search for the most wanted refugees in the Youngst Downtown area
Other charges range from distributing or possessing drugs to using a communications facility to promote a drug-related crime. Childs faces separate charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The case was assigned to US Judge Solomon J. Oliver in Cleveland. The indictment dates have not yet been set. US marshals and other law enforcement agencies are looking for the accused.
The indictment states that Moody gave Sanders, Spain, LaBooth and Childs heroin, fentanyl, fentanyl analogues and cocaine for sale in and around Youngstown.
Moody also put methamphetamine for sale in Spain and Childs, and Spain in turn put McCullough cocaine on sale, the indictment said.
Childs also gave cocaine for sale to Barnette, Knox and McBride, according to the indictment.
Moody is alleged to have used a house on Delason Avenue on the South Side for the sale and storage of drugs. The indictment did not state whether the house was on East Delason Avenue or West Delason Avenue.
“I’m not going to lie, I have mine:” YPD arrests two weapons at traffic controls
Investigators used search warrants to obtain wiretapping to help set up their case. At least 38 calls or text messages related to drugs or drug deals are listed in the indictment. The defendants’ code words included “man”, “girl”, “boy”, “hardware”, “zipper”, “Vick” and “onion” according to the prosecution.
In a conversation taped Aug. 6, 2019, a drug user complained to Childs because, according to the indictment, she was given a different type of drug to try on Moody’s orders.
“They say it should be better, that’s why I gave it to you,” said Moody, according to the indictment, on the phone after answering the phone. “Try a little. If you don’t like it, I’ll give you what I gave you earlier. “
At the time some of the drug activity was underway, Sanders was released on $ 40,000 bail after being charged with negligent homicide and other charges in January 2018 for selling the drugs that caused the overdose death of an Austintown on November 29, 2017.
Sanders was charged in the case in January 2018 and released on bail in March 2018 was ruled on September 29, 2019 in the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to t. sentencedo Two years in prison for pleading guilty to corrupting another person with drugs and heroin trafficking. He was awarded over 200 days to spend in the county jail while awaiting trial. In April 2020, he applied for early release, but it was denied.
Prosecutors are attempting to confiscate the 9mm pistol Childs allegedly had, as well as a 2014 Jaguar that was confiscated from the Moody’s Oakridge Drive home in Boardman when a search warrant was issued there in December 2019.
