Man stabbed in prison sentenced on drug charges

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — An Akron man who was one of eight people indicted for selling methamphetamine in Akron, Trumbull and Portage counties was sentenced Thursday to 13 years in federal prison.

Christen Tate Oakman, 29, received the sentence from U.S. Judge Christopher A. Boyko after he entered guilty pleas July 16 in the U.S. Northern District Court of Ohio to counts of conspiracy with intent to possess and distribute methamphetamine, distribution of methamphetamine and possession of methamphetamine.

Oakman was one of eight people who were indicted in September 2022 for distributing methamphetamine in Trumbull and Portage counties as well as the city of Akron between October 2021 and April 2022.

Prosecutors said the eight were also storing the drugs in homes in Akron and Trumbull County.

In a sentencing memorandum, Oakman’s Cleveland-based attorney, Roger Dixon, asked for a lenient sentence for his client, saying that while he was housed at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, the private prison on Hubbard Road, he was stabbed in an unprovoked attack and suffered serious injuries and almost died.

Dixon wrote that he did not want his client to be rewarded for sustaining an injury but only for the court to be aware that his incarceration “has been far more perilous than it has been for most others.”

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