The Supreme Court of Ohio this week ruled that Henry County was the proper venue to try the state’s case against a Toledo gang member who supplied the cocaine for sale to a confidential informant in the neighboring county.

The high court concluded that because the gang’s drug distributor participated in the activity in which 39-year-old Kenneth Brown was involved by selling cocaine in Henry County, a Third District Court of Appeals panel’s decision affirming Brown’s conviction on a single count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity was correct.

“Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, we hold that there was legally sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that (distributor Alexandria) Armijo participated in the affairs of the Tecumseh Street Gang’s enterprise, of which Brown was a member,” Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy wrote for the 7-0 court. “A review of the record gives us no reason to believe that the jury mistakenly found that venue was proper in Henry County.”

According to case summary, Brown, who lives in Toledo, is a member of the Tecumseh Street Gang with his nephews Anthony and Michael Lawrence.

The Tecumseh Street Gang, a subset of the Southside Gangster Disciples, primarily sells cocaine on the 800 block of Tecumseh Street in Toledo.

Having caught the attention of law enforcement, details about the gang’s drug activity were relayed via confidential informant to an Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent assigned to the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Toledo task force, summary provided.

As part of the investigation, law enforcement set up a controlled buy between the confidential informant and Armijo, during which the informant would purchase cocaine from Armijo at her Lucas County residence.

Armijo offered to drive to Napoleon in Henry County, where the confidential informant lived, to sell the informant more cocaine after the first controlled buy, summary detailed.

Law enforcement surveilled Armijo, who drove from her home to the city block controlled by Tecumseh Street Gang members, during the second controlled buy.

Armijo purchased cocaine from Anthony Lawrence, then drove to Napoleon where she resold the cocaine to the confidential informant before returning to Lucas County.

Law enforcement repeated the same operation for a third time a few weeks later, summary noted.

For the fourth controlled buy, law enforcement had an undercover agent purchase an increased quantity of cocaine from Armijo in Henry County.

Upon completion of the sale, Armijo began the return trip to Lucas County, during which an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper pulled Armijo over in Henry County.

During the traffic stop, law enforcement officers found the money used in the transaction with the undercover agent and arrested her.

Armijo explained that each time she sold cocaine in Henry County, Lawrence had sold it to her. She also said Anthony would sell the drug to her according to a credit arrangement in which she would keep a $500 profit from the sale after paying the purchase price.

Armijo agreed to cooperate with law enforcement and to participate in a controlled purchase in which she drove from Henry County to Lucas County to meet Lawrence in a parking lot and pay him for the drugs with money that law enforcement had marked.

Lawrence returned to 807 Tecumseh Street and surveillance for that day ended, summary continued.

Law enforcement then installed surveillance cameras on the 800 block of Tecumseh Street. Surveillance revealed Brown participating in many hand-to-hand exchanges of cocaine on Tecumseh Street with his nephews, as well as others.

The surveillance recorded Brown and his nephews selling cocaine on the 800 block of Tecumseh Street from 8 or 9 a.m. until 7 to 10 p.m. every day.

Brown was arrested and charged in the Henry County Court of Common Pleas on a single count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity in violation of R.C. 2923.32(A)(1) and (B)(1).

Brown argued during trial that the state had not established venue in Henry County, because Armijo was not part of the Tecumseh Street Gang enterprise in Lucas County.

The trial court disagreed and denied Brown’s Crim.R. 29 motion for acquittal. The jury found Brown guilty of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and found that venue was proper in Henry County, summary detailed.

Brown subsequently appealed, asserting that the state’s evidence was insufficient to establish that he was part of an enterprise engaging in a pattern of corrupt activities in Henry County and that the jury’s venue finding was against the manifest weight of the evidence.

The appellate panel disagreed, concluding that a reasonable juror could find that Brown was involved with his nephews in a drug-dealing enterprise operating on the 800 block of Tecumseh Street in Lucas County, the evidence regarding Anthony’s fronting drugs to Armijo that she then resold in Henry County brought her into the enterprise and that by fronting to Armijo, the enterprise came to have a direct interest in the proceeds from the drugs sold to the buyer in Henry County.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear Brown’s appeal of the appellate ruling on the following proposition of law:

When the state shows that a wholesaler sold drugs to a retailer who controlled her own work, the state has not met its burden to prove that the retailer was part of the wholesaler’s enterprise, as defined by R.C. 2923.31 and 2923.32.

As a result, when venue is based solely on the county to which the retailer chose to travel, the evidence of venue in that county is insufficient and a guilty verdict against the wholesaler is against the manifest weight of the evidence.

“She made several drug purchases from Anthony for the purpose of resale, and at least once, she purchased cocaine from him on credit, making a $500 profit when she sold the cocaine to another party — that alone was enough to form a conspiracy. And when Anthony was unavailable, she purchased drugs from other people in the Tecumseh Street Gang,” Kennedy continued. “This evidence is sufficient to show that Armijo was associated with the Tecumseh Street Gang’s drug-selling enterprise.”