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YOUNGSTOWN -- Maurice Redrick, 21, the last of the six young men charged with shooting into the East Side apartment of Crystal Hernandez, killing her as she held her young son, pleaded guilty Tuesday to reduced charges.
Redrick took the same plea as several others, pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter with a gun specification and conspiracy.
Prosecutors will recommend that Redrick get 23 years in prison.
Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court will sentence Redrick at 10:30 a.m. March 26. Because Redrick is the final defendant to take a plea, there will be no additional trials in the case.
Hernandez, 23, was killed Jan. 24, 2019, when the six young men went to the Victory Estates apartments looking for Hernandez's boyfriend, Gabriel Smith Jr., to retaliate against him for an earlier shooting that day.
It was at the end of a daylong feud involving some of the young men and Smith that spanned three sets of shootings.
But Smith wasn't home when the six arrived, only Hernandez and their son, 2. The six fired more than 50 shots into the apartment, one hitting Hernandez in the neck. The boy was asleep and unharmed on his mother's chest when police entered the home and found his mother dead.
Larenz Rhodes, now 20, took the case to trial last August and was convicted of murder, conspiracy, one count of improperly discharging firearms into a habitation, felonious assault and improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle and was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
Four others also pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter with a gun specification and conspiracy in the case earlier -- Marquise Torres-Willis, 23; Johntez Scrivens, 21; Joquan Blair, 24; and Burton McGee, 21.
Sentencing was not held for any of those four to see whether their testimony would be needed in the cases of any of their co-defendants, in addition to Rhodes.
runyan@tribtoday.com