Staff photo / Ed Runyan Johnnie McCall, 35, left, pleaded guilty Tuesday to involuntary manslaughter and other charges in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in the December 2021 shooting death of Calvin Moore, 27, in the Vibez nightclub on Youngstown’s South Side. His attorney is Lou DeFabio, right.

YOUNGSTOWN — One day after a homicide in the parking lot of the Vibez nightclub on East Midlothian Boulevard in Youngstown, Johnnie McCall, 35, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges for killing a man in the same parking lot on Dec. 12, 2021.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito sentenced McCall to 20 to 25 and ½ years in prison for shooting Calvin Moore, 27, who survived the shooting initially and was released from the hospital, but later went back to the hospital and died.

In addition to involuntary manslaughter, McCall pleaded guilty to a repeat violent offender specification and a gun specification and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Youngstown police called Vibez a “new nightclub” at 914 E. Midlothian when Moore was shot in his automobile at 2 a.m. Dec. 12, 2021, and was taken “by persons unknown” in a vehicle to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, according to a 2021 police news release.

McCall was indicted in late January 2022 on charges of aggravated murder with a gun specification and repeat violent offender specification; two counts of murder with a gun specification and repeat violent offender specification; felonious assault with a gun specification, repeat violent offender specification and notice of prior conviction; being a felon in possession of a firearm with a gun specification; and carrying a concealed weapon.

Moore died in late December 2021. McCall has been in the Mahoning County jail awaiting trial since Dec. 16, 2021, according to jail records.

The case was slowed by an evaluation in February 2022 to determine whether McCall was competent to stand trial or plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Then a second evaluation several months later was conducted. A defense expert was appointed in September of 2022 to evaluate the cause of Moore’s death.

An autopsy report stated that Moore died from “complications with a recent gunshot wound of the chest with visceral and skeletal injuries,” according to a defense filing. It added that the cause of Moore’s death was “in dispute by the defendant.”

Almost two years later, in August 2024, Lou DeFabio, McCall’s attorney, was still waiting for the defense expert to complete his report, a filing states.

At McCall’s plea and sentencing hearing Tuesday, Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor John Juhasz told D’Apolito that he was told that the prosecutor’s office under then-Prosecutor Gina DeGenova had discussions with the defense late last year regarding the possibility of a plea and 20-year sentence for McCall if that was OK with the victim’s family.

Juhasz, who became an assistant prosecutor under Lynn Maro in early January, said he met with the victim’s mother last week to get her approval on the plea agreement that was worked out in December. She missed some appointments made to talk to prosecutors to get her approval, and she gave it last week, Juhasz said.

The agreement involved amending one of the murder counts to involuntary manslaughter and dismissing some other charges. The defense and prosecution jointly recommended the plea and sentence. McCall got credit for the three years and two months he has been in jail awaiting trial.

When Maro was asked after the hearing whether the plea agreement amending McCall’s murder to involuntary manslaughter violated her goal to get life prison sentences for someone responsible for taking a life, she said the plea offer was made under the previous county prosecutor.

“This was done before I took office,” Maro said, adding “When that happens, we can’t come in and rescind offers that were made.”

A 2:20 a.m. shooting Monday at the Vibez nightclub killed Deandre Stores, 30. Stores was in the passenger seat of a car in the nightclub’s parking lot, police said. There have been other shootings at the club since Moore’s death in 2021, including the killing of Marquan White, 25, in the parking lot July 5, 2022.