Court date reset for Vallejo gang member linked to fatal shootings

A Solano County Superior Court judge on Tuesday reshuffled legal proceedings for one of four members of a Vallejo street gang accused of shooting and killing three men in 2017 and 2018 in Vallejo.

Desean Lamar Johnson, 24, was scheduled to appear in Department 11 for a readiness conference, a trial setting and a motion to suppress evidence, but Judge William J. Pendergast ordered him to return for the same proceedings and a ruling at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 3 in the Justice Center in Fairfield. Johnson is represented by attorney Tim A. Pori.

Johnson is believed to be a member of the 200 Westwood gang, as identified by the Vallejo Police Department. He is charged with the January 2018 murder of Coy Lay Jr., 30, as are two other gang members, Nickolas James Howland, 23, and Steven Tezel Sanderson, 20. Howland, a rapper, and Sanderson also are charged in connection to the fatal shooting of DeMario Williams in September 2017.

Pendergast has ordered Howland to return at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 27 for a motion to sever, or separate, his trial and another trial readiness conference. The judge also ordered Sanderson to return at the same time for a readiness conference.

As previously scheduled, the two defendants also will face a trial management conference at 8:30 a. m. April 22 and a jury trial at 9 a.m. April 26, also in Dept. 11.

Howland is represented by Fairfield criminal defense attorney Curtis Boyd, Sanderson by attorney John Coffer.

A fourth suspect in the killings, Damaria Tijaraye Haskins, 23, was indicted in Nov. 2018 by a Solano County grand jury for the 2017 murder of Erik Green and the attempted murder of his Green’s brother, Eian.

Haskins returns to Department 11 at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 27 for a trial readiness conference and trial setting. He is represented by criminal defense attorney Carol Long.

A previously convicted gang member, Tiquon Ramon Hicks Jr., 24, was sentenced on March 5 to more than 27 years in state prison for the second- degree murder of Williams.

Deputy District Attorney Eric Charm led the prosecution in the Hicks case and is the lead prosecutor in the pending murder trials.

In December 2019, Pendergast agreed to sever all but one of the remaining pending trials, Howland and Sanderson’s.

All four gang members remain in Solano County Jail in Fairfield.