‘It doesn’t change things’
One of Crystal Hernandez’s five killers apologizes; all given 20-plus year prison sentences
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YOUNGSTOWN -- It wasn't until the third sentencing hearing Friday among five young men responsible for killing her daughter that Nivea Ramos heard an apology.
Johntez Scrivens, 21, who later received a 20-year prison sentence, apologized to Ramos, his own family and others for shooting into the home Jan. 24, 2019, where Crystal Hernandez, 23, was killed while holding her young son. More than 50 bullets tore through her Victory Estates apartment on the East Side, killing her.
Five of the six defendants who participated in the murder were sentenced Friday. A sixth shooter was previously sentenced.
When police arrived, they found Hernandez dead, her son, 2, asleep on her chest. It was the third round of gunfire that day in a feud involving some of the six and Gabriel Smith Sr., now 21, boyfriend of Hernandez and her son's father.
Smith was not home when the six fired into the apartment, only Hernandez and their son.
Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court said that of the six young men who fired into the apartment, Scrivens had the most "potential" for good. He was working as a manager at the VXI call center downtown, and he did not have a criminal history like some of the others.
But his cousin, Maurice Redrick, now 21, one of the other five defendants, called him and asked Scrivens to provide some guns, which Scrivens did, including an AK-47 assault rifle -- the only high-velocity firearm used that day.
It was "the gun that ultimately caused the death of Crystal Hernandez," the judge said. "The choice you made on Jan. 24, 2019, affected the lives of so many people. Your participation in the events of that night resulted in the death of a beautiful young lady, whose son is now going to grow up without a mother."
PLEA AGREEMENTS
The five defendants Friday all accepted plea agreements in which they pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy and gun specifications in Hernandez's death. A sixth man who was not involved in the Hernandez murder also was sentenced.
After Scrivens' hearing was over, Ramos said she was grateful for his apology, "but it doesn't change things. It doesn't bring (Crystal) back." She said what she really appreciated was that Donofrio pointed out to Scrivens that his decision to provide guns and participate in the shooting harmed so many people.
In addition to Scrivens, defendants Burton McGee, now 20, and Joquaun Blair, now 24, each got a 20-year prison sentences.
Two others got 23-year prison sentences: Redrick, who was sentenced first, and Marquis Torres-Willis, 23.
The sixth shooter, Larenz Rhodes, now 20, was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in August after taking the case to trial and being convicted of murder, conspiracy, one count of improperly discharging firearms into a habitation, felonious assault and improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle.
Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Trapp said Friday there is no doubt that Rhodes was the shooter who used the AK-47. He said evidence showed that a bullet from the AK-47 caused Hernandez's death.
A fragment of shell casing from the bullet that killed Hernandez was in the bullet wound in her neck area, he said. It was a shell casing for an "AK-type" of bullet, he said.
'AN EMPTINESS'
Redrick's sentencing was the first of the day and was the only one in which Ramos made a victim-impact statement. She did not have to give the same statement during the five other hearings because Donofrio said he would "incorporate" her remarks into the other sentencings.
"There is an emptiness inside of me due to Crystal's death that will haunt me every day for the rest of my life," Ramos said.
"Crystal's death has left me vulnerable and forever saddened that she will never be able to realize her dreams and raise her baby, whom she loved and protected until her last breath."
Notable testimony took place in Rhodes' trial about Redrick's role in the shooting that prosecutors said Friday might or might not have been true because they had no way to verify it.
Co-defendant Blair testified that when the six young men got to the door of the apartment where Hernandez and lived, Blair thought he heard co-defendant McGee tell one of the other co-defendants to "go knock on the door and see who was in there."
Blair continued, "But I guess K-R (Redrick) said, 'Just shoot the house up because they shot my aunt's house up.'"
The gunfire came at the end of daylong series of shootings and retribution shootings. When the six males went to Hernandez's home, the reason was to get revenge on Smith for an incident earlier in the day in which Lavante Perry, who was with Smith, shot buckshot into the face of Rhodes and also hit Martize Daniels, now 21, in the leg.
Perry, 24, was later found murdered in his East Side home. No one has been charged in that killing.
Shooting up the apartment where Smith lived was retaliation for incidents that began at 1:28 a.m. that day at the Speed Check gas station on McGuffey Road, when young men confronted Smith. Prosecutors said McGee and Smith were in conflict at the time over "small stuff," such as stolen marijuana and some legal trouble involving Smith.
One defendant sentenced Friday who was not part of Hernandez's killing was Daniels, who got seven years in prison after pleading guilty to felonious assault with a gun specification for shooting at Smith in one of the earlier confrontations Jan. 24, 2019.