Steubenville man sentenced for role in major drug ring

Operation covered Ohio Valley towns

The enforcer for a drug ring that flooded the small towns of the Ohio Valley with heroin from Chicago will serve more than six years behind bars.

David McShan, 39, of Steubenville, Ohio, was sentenced to 74 months Thursday in a federal courtroom in Columbus.

He and his brother, Fred McShan, were convicted by a federal jury in March following a year-long investigation by the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and local police in Steubenville, Weirton, W.Va., and other towns overrun by heroin addiction.

The trial showed that Fred McShan, 42, was the ringleader and David McShan acted as his muscle, trading on a reputation for violence that intimidated rival dealers and prevented witnesses from coming forward.

The McShans and a group of cohorts were indicted in 2015.

The investigation resulted in the seizure of guns, cars and $110,000 in cash.

Federal agents said Fred McShan, who is awaiting sentencing, traveled to Illinois to buy heroin for resale throughout the Ohio Valley.

David McShan came with him on some occasions and acted as his enforcer there and back home.

One of the problems local law enforcement had in pursuing the McShans in the pastwas fear.

Witnesses would not come forward because they were afraid, prosecutors said.

So the U.S. Justice Department moved in.

Federal agents and police teamed up for the investigation and the case was coordinated jointly by the U.S. attorney's offices in Wheeling and Columbus, with help from a local state prosecutor deputized as an assistant U.S. attorney to combat drugs and guns in the region.

The ring was somewhat unusual in that much of the heroin supply in West Virginia comes from Detroit and Columbus, but the McShan operation was supplied from Chicago.

Agents and police said the McShan gang dealt heroin primarily in the Market Street housing project in Steubenville and in the town of Bellaire, Ohio, as well as in Weirton and Wheeling in West Virginia.

Trial testimony revealed that Donae Grier of Steubenville, who later lived in Texas, handled the daily operations of the ring while Kerris Moncrease of Weirton was responsible for delivering heroin in West Virginia.

That state has the highest per capita drug overdose rate in the U.S.

Grier and Moncrease are in federal prison, along with five other ring members.

Fred McShan will be sentenced Oct. 12 and faces decades in prison.