Staff photo / Ed Runyan Derrick A. Gabriel, 36, of Campbell, left, listens as his attorney, Tony Meranto, speaks on Gabriel’s behalf during Gabriel’s sentencing hearing Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Gabriel got two years in prison for having weapons while not allowed because of a previous felony criminal record.

YOUNGSTOWN — Derrick A. Gabriel, 36, of Campbell, told Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney that he knows he is not supposed to carry a gun because of his felony criminal record, but he had concern for the safety of his mother and his children.

“I’m not trying to hurt nobody. I work. I take care of my kids. I’ve got a fiancee,” he said.

He agreed that he spent time in prison and cannot possess a firearm, but has been out for about six years.

His attorney, Tony Meranto, told the judge that he has talked to Gabriel about carrying guns when he is prohibited from doing so.

“Unfortunately, many residents of our community still believe it’s necessary. I don’t know if it’s for purposes of show, purposes of protection, which is what everybody says, or it’s just like ‘everybody does it here,'” Meranto told the judge. “I’ve explained to Mr. Gabriel that that can’t get him anywhere but prison, prison, prison.”

He asked that Gabriel get less prison time than Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Paris asked for — 18 months.

The judge noted that Gabriel has a warrant out of Lawrence County and Gabriel has had other issues. Later, Sweeney sentenced Gabriel to two years in prison with credit for 22 days already spent in the Mahoning County jail.

According to Gabriel’s indictment, he caused or tried to cause serious physical harm to a person with a firearm Feb. 18, 2024, and possessed a firearm in the commission of the offense, which was a violation because he had been convicted of first-degree aggravated burglary in a 2012 Mahoning County criminal case.

He was secretly indicted on charges of felonious assault and being a felon in possession of a firearm, plus a gun specification and a specification of notice of a prior conviction on the aggravated burglary and repeat violent offender specification for the aggravated burglary.

The felonious assault and the specifications were all dismissed in exchange for Gabriel’s guilty plea June 2 to being a felon in possession of a firearm, a third-degree felony, according to court records.

Gabriel’s co-defendant, Markeisha S. Howard, 33, of Youngstown, was indicted on felony offenses of complicity in the commission of an offense and unlawful transactions in weapons for supplying the gun to Gabriel, according to authorities.

She pleaded guilty May 22 to felony unlawful transactions in weapons and will be sentenced 10 a.m. July 23, also by Sweeney.

Authorities say the Youngstown Police Department initially investigated the incident in which Gabriel fired a weapon at a woman, his child’s mother. The local task force for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives carried out the investigation that led to the charges filed in this case.

An agent investigating the gun that was found by local police in connection with the gunfire involving Gabriel and the woman determined that Howard purchased it a short time before it was fired at the other woman’s vehicle. Howard later told authorities she bought the gun for Gabriel, investigators said.