Blade
Clarett lawyer gets some flak for comment on Youngstown
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - The mayor of Youngstown objected yesterday to comments earlier this week from Maurice Clarett's lawyer, who called the former Ohio State University football star's wearing of a bullet-resistant vest "a way of life" in Clarett's hometown.
After Clarett, 22, struck a deal that led to guilty pleas on aggravated robbery and weapons charges, one of his attorneys, Michael Hoague, said, "If you travel in his neighborhood in Youngstown, you see a lot of people, for whatever reason, wearing their tank tops with their flak vests. It's a way of life with the people he grew up with." In a letter to Mr. Hoague,
Mayor Jay Williams described the comment as "lunacy." "If truth be told, Mr. Hoague, while traveling the neighborhoods of Youngstown [which, unlike you, I do on a daily basis], I cannot remember the last time I've seen anyone wearing a tank top with a flak vest," he wrote. "Fact: Mr. Clarett is a grown man who must, and apparently has, taken responsibility for his actions, period," he wrote. "Fact: No one else is to blame for these actions; not Youngstown, not the people in its neighborhoods." Clarett was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison. He faces six for aggravated robbery with a gun specification stemming from an incident in Columbus on New Year's Day and 18 months for illegally carrying a firearm during an Aug. 9 police chase.