Staff photo / Ed Runyan Taquashon Ray, left, sits at one defense table, and co-defendant Shaiquon Sharpe sits at the other during a break in their aggravated murder trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Their trial ended with guilty verdicts in February 2022 and sentences of more than 100 years in prison.

By ED RUNYAN

Staff writer

YOUNGSTOWN — The triple-murder trial of Taquashon Ray and his cousin, Shaiquon Sharpe, that ended with guilty verdicts in February 2022 and sentences of more than 100 years in prison were among the more notable Mahoning County criminal cases last year.

But the annual report released recently by new Mahoning County Prosecutor Gina DeGenova and her staff provides a more rounded view of the work done by her office.

The 27-page report can be viewed at the Mahoning County prosecutor’s Facebook page.

Ray and Sharpe, both then 25, were convicted of killing Edward Morris, 21; Valarcia Blair, 19; and her 3-month-old son, Tariq; on Nov. 7, 2018, in a car parked in the devil strip in front of 702 Pasadena Ave. on the South Side.

DeGenova and former county prosecutor Paul Gains began offering an annual report in 2021. DeGenova said she thought the annual report was a useful tool after looking at what other prosecutor’s offices do across the country. It was part of her role as public information officer, a title she gained in 2020.

In this year’s report, DeGenova’s first as the county prosecutor following Gains’ retirement late last year, she said criminal prosecutors are important because crime hurts “not only the victim, but also the community as a whole.”

She said her office’s victim coordinators “make thousands of contacts with victims and witnesses of crime each year, helping them cope with everything from the loss of a loved one to documenting and applying for restitution. In 2,022, we had 7,605 contacts with victims, their families and witnesses.”

But the civil attorneys in her office handled 2,353 matters on behalf of elected Mahoning County officials, public officials, local law enforcement agencies, members of county boards and township trustees and fiscal officers in each of Mahoning County’s 14 townships.

The Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office disposed of 930 criminal cases in 2022 by way of plea, trial or other means. Assistant prosecutors presented 792 cases to a grand jury, and 765 cases were returned as indictments.

The prosecutors’ office screened 133 cases of alleged violence agains women and children, resurgent in 101 indictments. Four cases went to trial in 2022 with three of them resulting in conviction and one not guilty verdict.

Her office handled 74 appeals of Mahoning County criminal cases, resulting in making oral arguments in 11 cases. The prosecutor’s office screened 411 juvenile cases in 2022 with 287 of them resulting in juvenile delinquency complaints (charges) being filed.

Prosecutors handled 2,989 misdemeanor criminal cases and 10,844 traffic cases through the county courts. DeGenova’s office objected to parole for 24 offenders last year, 10 of those being adults who were juveniles at the time of their offenses.

They were successful in keeping two such men in prison when the parole attempts of Chad Barnett and James Goins were denied.

Their crimes involved injuring a man, 83, in his own home, throwing the man down the steps, causing a punctured lung, broken ribs and other broken bones.

Later that night, Barnette and Goins dragged a female around her home looking for cash, after which they struck a male victim, who was confined to a wheelchair over the head with plates and other objects, causing severe head contusions and profuse bleeding. The female was then hit in the head and legs with a shotgun, the annual report states.

The report bids farewell to Gains, who served 26 years as county prosecutor after six years in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, during which time he also became a Youngstown police officer and became president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 28.

After earning his law degree, he worked as a criminal defense lawyer and handled other matters. He worked in private practice 15 years before being elected county prosecutor. He was Mahoning County’s longest serving elected prosecutor.

erunyan@vindy.com