YSU chief to drug dealers: Keep off campus

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

A four-year prison term for a former Youngstown State University football player should send a message that drug-dealing won’t be tolerated on or near campus, say the university’s president and police chief.

“We will continue to prosecute anyone that we catch in such acts. Selling marijuana on or near the Youngstown State University campus is absolutely not part of the college experience. ... We have no intention of tolerating it,” said YSU President Cynthia Anderson.

YSU Police Chief John Gocala Sr., whose department initiated the drug-dealing investigation, concurred, saying, “We have a zero-tolerance policy, and we intend to enforce it very efficiently and very effectively anywhere around the campus.”

Both made their remarks Tuesday after leaving the courtroom of Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who had just sentenced Tyler M. Griffin to four years in prison.

Griffin, who was a cornerback in 2008, is a nephew of Archie Griffin, president of the Ohio State University Alumni Association and two-time Heisman Trophy winner.

Tyler Griffin had earlier pleaded guilty to seven counts of marijuana trafficking and two counts of funding of drug trafficking.

Griffin, 25, did not make any of the marijuana sales he was charged with on campus, but he made them within about 500 feet of campus in October and November 2008, said Martin P. Desmond, assistant county prosecutor.

University students typically would meet Griffin at his Ohio Avenue apartment to buy marijuana, Desmond said.

YSU Police Sgt. Randy Williams, who is a member of the Mahoning Valley Drug Task Force, played a major role in investigating this case, Desmond said.

Griffin’s lawyer, Mark Lavelle, urged the judge to send Griffin to prison for one year. “He’s a good kid, judge, who smokes marijuana. He saw an opportunity for some cash. He saw an opportunity for some free weed,” Lavelle said.

“I understand what I did was wrong. I took the opportunity to smoke weed for free. I didn’t mean any harm,” said Griffin, who apologized for his crimes.

In July, Judge Sweeney imposed a four-year prison term on Griffin’s co-defendant, Andre O. Johnson, 29, a former Youngstown firefighter, who Desmond said mailed marijuana to Griffin from California.

Griffin would mail large amounts of cash to Johnson, who would then mail large amounts of marijuana to Griffin, and police intercepted one of the marijuana packages, Desmond said. Desmond sought a four-year prison term for Griffin.

The dollar amounts of the transactions Griffin pleaded guilty to range from $20 to $30 apiece for the lower-level charges to $800 each for two one-pound transactions and $4,800 for a five-pound transaction, Desmond said.

As for judicial release, Judge Sweeney told Griffin: “It all is on your shoulders. If there’s one screw-up in prison, I’m not even going to consider it. Do you understand?”

Griffin, whose earliest eligibility for judicial release will be in 18 months, replied: “Yes, your honor.”