Man convicted of YSU robberies

staff report

YOUNGSTOWN — Willie Lee Davis has been convicted on four counts of aggravated robbery for using a fake gun to take cash and a car from four Youngstown State University students April 22, 2007.

The jury deliberated about 90 minutes Thursday before returning guilty verdicts on all charges, including specifications that Davis, 39, was a repeat violent offender, plus assault of a police officer and failure to comply with a police order.

Davis, of Bennington and Stewart avenues in Youngstown, will be sentenced later in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court by Judge James C. Evans, who presided over the trial.

He could get more than 38 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Davis robbed a female YSU student of $25 in cash in the parking lot near her dorm room at about 9 p.m., then robbed three other female students in a parking lot near their on-campus apartment about 90 minutes later.

In that robbery, Davis got $10 cash and drove off with their car, which Youngstown police officer Michael Marciano spotted on Albert Street a short time after the robbery.

After a high-speed car chase, Davis stopped the car at a dead end on Kimmel Street on the East Side and fled into the woods.

Marciano caught up to Davis in the woods, struggled with him and eventually subdued him by putting him into a “sleeper hold,” which rendered him unconscious.

Police recovered a toy gun from Davis a short time later.