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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- A 40-year-old Johnstown man with a long history of drug abuse said Tuesday that selling drugs allowed him to support his own habit.
"I was using drugs for a long time," Malik Lydil Johnson told Judge Wade Kagarise, who handed down a sentence of six to 14 years based on Johnson's plea to criminal charges in five heroin sales inside Blair County.
"This is the first time in my life that I've wanted to change," Johnson told Kagarise.
Johnson has been housed in the Blair County Prison since his Aug. 2, 2018, arrest outside the food court of the Logan Valley Mall where he sold heroin laced with fentanyl to a confidential informant for $250. It was the fifth sale police reported witnessing during an investigation that began in June 2018.
Johnson was supposed to go on trial in September, but at the last minute, he rendered guilty pleas to five counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, five counts of criminal use of a communication device and one count of criminal conspiracy, for a sentence that Kagarise would impose.
District Attorney Pete Weeks recommended Tuesday that Kagarise impose seven to 20 years, based on Johnson's drug-selling offenses and prior record. In addition to juvenile crimes, Johnson was convicted of drug selling offenses in Blair County in 2009 and in Luzerne County in 2015.
"The record supports that he is a lifelong drug dealer," Weeks said.
Weeks also mentioned that he prosecuted Johnson for his 2009 drug selling offenses, leading to the first of two state sentences.
"There's no evidence to support that once he's released from prison that he'll change his behavior," the district attorney said.
Defense Attorney Richard Corcoran told Kagarise that his client, born in New Jersey, was raised by drug dealers. Johnson started using cocaine when he was 18 and began using heroin when he was 35, Corcoran told the judge.
Corcoran criticized police for not arresting Johnson after the first of the five drug sales reported in their investigation. Johnson was on parole at the time of the first sale, so he could have been arrested then, the defense attorney said.
Kagarise structured the sentence in a way that assigned an incarceration period of five to 12 years to possession with intent to deliver, and an additional one to two years for criminal use of a communication device, resulting in the six- to14-year sentence. Incarceration time assigned to Johnson's additional offenses will be served at the same time as the six- to 14-years sentence, the judge said.
Kagarise also acknowledged that Johnson should be credited for time served and he may qualify for early release through the state's Risk Recidivism Reduction Initiative.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.