MAHONING COMMON PLEAS COURT Testimony: Drug debt led to crime

Daniel Farah said one of the defendants talked about the robbery while he was in the county jail awaiting trial.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Michael Kapsouris and Jacob DiCarlo robbed a woman last summer because DiCarlo needed money to pay off a drug debt, according to testimony in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Each man made $3,000 from the heist, according to Daniel Farah, who testified for prosecutors Wednesday.
DiCarlo, 22, of Ayrshire Drive, and Kapsouris, 25, of South Raccoon Road, are each charged with aggravated robbery and felonious assault.
Police and prosecutors say one of the two men robbed a woman of some $6,000 she was depositing for her employer at Key Bank on South Raccoon Road in July 2001.
The woman, who was 39 at the time, was stabbed during the robbery. She was unable to identify her assailants.
The other suspect waited in a car and drove the pair away after the robbery.
Jail mates
Farah, who was once an inmate at the county jail while DiCarlo and Kapsouris were being held pending their trial, said Kapsouris told him all about the crimes while they were behind bars.
"Everybody in the whole jail knew what they did," he said.
Farah said Kapsouris told him that DiCarlo owed another man $2,500 for drugs. Kapsouris paid the money, then the two went out and robbed the woman at the bank to get his money back.
Under cross-examination by DiCarlo's lawyer, Douglas B. Taylor, Farah said he'd known DiCarlo before they met in jail and had never known him to commit such crimes.
"I was stunned when I learned that he did it," Farah said.
The knife
Farah told Atty. Mark Lavelle, who represents Kapsouris, that Kapsouris never mentioned anything about a knife being used on the victim.
"He said they had to do her to get the money, that there was a stabbing," Farah said. "They could have used a fork for all I know."
Police have said the stabbing was with a switchblade knife.
Farah is serving a four-year prison sentence for unrelated charges of theft and receiving stolen property.
bjackson@vindy.com