Court date reshuffled for Vallejo gang member charged with 2018 murder
Legal proceedings continue for one of four remaining members of a Vallejo street gang behind Solano County Jail bars.
Desean Lamar Johnson, 24, was scheduled to appear Sept. 30 in Department 11 for a readiness conference, a motion to suppress evidence, and a trial setting, but Judge William J. Pendergast rescheduled the matters until 8:30 a.m. Dec. 1 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
Johnson, along with two other gang members, is charged with the January 2018 murder of Coy Lacy Jr., 30, in Vallejo. The other two are Nickolas James Howland, 23, and Steven Tezel Sanderson, 20. All three are reputed members of the 200 Westwood criminal street gang, according to Vallejo police investigators.
They and two others, Damaria Tijaraye Haskins, 22, and Tiquon R. Hicks, 24, are connected to the killing of three men in Vallejo in 2017 and 2018. After a jury trial, Hicks on March 5 was sentenced to more than 27 years in state prison for the second-degree murder of DeMario Williams in September 2017. Haskins was indicted in November 2018 by a Solano County grand jury for the 2017 murder of Erik Green and the attempted murder of his brother, Eian.
Also charged with the killing of Williams, Howland, and Sanderson return to Department 11 at 8:30 Nov. 16 for a trial readiness conference. They return again at 9 a.m. April 22 for a trial management conference and at 9 a.m. April 26 for a jury trial. Howland, a rapper, is represented by defense attorney Curtis Boyd and Sanderson by John Coffer. Attorney Tim
A. Pori represents Johnson.
Deputy District Attorney Eric Charm led the prosecution in the Hicks case and is the lead prosecutor in the pending murder trials.
Haskins, who is represented by criminal defense attorney Carol Long, returns to Pendergast’s courtroom for a trial readiness conference at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 19; a trial management conference at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 7; and a jury trial at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 11.
In December 2019, Pendergast agreed to “sever,” or separate, all but one of the remaining pending trials, Howland and Sanderson’s.
The gang got its name from the Vallejo street block they claimed as their turf, confirmed by photos and videos of gang members and witness testimony during Hicks’ trial.