YOUNGSTOWN — A jury found Michael Sherman, 21, guilty Friday of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery in the March 3, 2018, shooting death of Brandon Wareham, 18, of Austintown.

He was convicted on his birthday and will get a life prison sentence.

Sherman was not accused of being the triggerman but admitted being present when Wareham was fatally shot in the driveway of a home on Rhoda Avenue on the West Side.

Judge Anthony D’Apolito will sentence Sherman after a presentence investigation of Sherman’s background is conducted.

He will be eligible for parole after serving at least 23 years, but D’Apolito could choose his minimum term in prison to be 23, 28 or 33 years. Sherman’s minimum sentence for the aggravated murder is 20 years, but a specification that a gun was used adds three more years.

Sherman, of Wesley Avenue, was 19 at the time of the killing, but he turned 21 Friday.

Testimony during the trial indicated that several teens who gathered at the home March 2, 2018, decided they would rob marijuana dealers for their marijuana by using fake money. They were successful once March 2 and unsuccessful the second time. They asked Wareham to come over that night, but he didn’t.

They decided to try again the next day, contacting additional people, including Wareham, who arrived at the home, pulled to the end of the driveway near the house and was met by a girl, 14. Her job was to distract Wareham while Sherman and two other males approached the car to take Wareham’s marijuana.

Testimony from one of two other men, Daniel Sullivan II, 19, was that Mark Winlock Jr., 19, was first to get to the car, and he pointed a gun at Wareham, who tried to back up his car and “pull off.” But Winlock shot Wareham. Sullivan and Sherman were near Winlock at the time. They all fled.

Sullivan took a plea agreement, agreeing to testify against his co-defendants in exchange for a lighter sentence. Prosecutors will recommend that Sullivan get 14 years in prison.

The girl who distrated Wareham and the girl who contacted Wareham on social media to ask him to come to the home to sell marijuana were both juveniles at the time. They both reached plea agreements requiring them to testify at the trial in exchange for reduced time in juvenile detention.

One of the girls, now 18, is expected to be in juvenile detetention for five years.

Winlock will be tried later.

A defense attorney told jurors that Sherman was not guilty of aggravated murder because he did not know anyone was going to commit a robbery that day, and didn’t know anyone had a gun.

But Sullivan and another witness both said Sherman was aware of the robbery plan.

Prosecutors told the jury a key to this case is complicity, which means an accomplice in a crime can get the same sentence as the primary perpetrator. Sherman was charged with the same crimes as Winlock, even though Sherman did not pull the trigger.

Being complicit in a crime means a person “aids or abets another to commit an offense or conspires with another to commit an offense and shares the same criminal intent as the principal,” asssistant Prosecutor Jennifer Paris told the jury.

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