Gambling conflict

Gambling conflict
YOUNGSTOWN -- A local law or charter amendment attempting to legalize gambling would conflict with state law and would be unconstitutional, the city law director's office said this morning. Concurring with the state attorney general opinion of Thursday, the office of Law Director Robert Bush Jr. issued the legal opinion in response to a request from Councilman John R. Swierz, D-7th, after a Beaver Township resident suggested a downtown casino.
Police step up patrol
AUSTINTOWN -- Police said they will step up patrols near the Austintown Community Baseball League fields on Vassar Drive in response to a recent report of vandalism.
The league president told police Thursday that during the past two weeks someone has spray-painted obscene words and pictures on the league concession stand. Some of the obscenities were directed at police.
The league president also told police that teens have been having parties in the woods behind the fields.
Chase ends in crash
AUSTINTOWN -- A 48-year-old homeless man was arrested for breaking and entering and fleeing and eluding early today after he led police on a chase into Youngstown.
The chase ended when the man crashed his car into a tree at the corner of Andrews and Randall avenues.
An Austintown patrolman responding to an alarm at the Golden Food Mart, 4290 New Road saw a man with a plastic trash can jump out of a window. The can contained 23 cartons of cigarettes worth a total of $690.
Police chased the man at speeds of up to 80 mph.
Youngstown police took over the chase, and the man drove through Mill Creek park to Andrews Avenue, where he struck the tree. The chase lasted about nine minutes, police said.
Man wanted in N.C.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- A 21-year-old New Springfield, Ohio, man was in Lawrence County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bond, pending extradition to North Carolina on a statutory rape charge, after state police arrested him Thursday afternoon at his workplace along Wilmington Road, Neshannock Township.
Jonathan Ray Tamayo of Woodworth Road is wanted by North Carolina authorities on felony warrants charging him with statutory rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor dating back to 1998.
Woman dies in crash
LIBERTY -- An Austintown woman was killed Thursday afternoon when she struck a vehicle that was painting lines on the road.
Beth Beligni, 43, of Hamman Drive, was driving south on state Route 11 near Tibbetts-Wick Road about 1:40 p.m. when she hit the truck and was killed, said a spokesman from the Warren post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Shooter sentenced
YOUNGSTOWN -- Herbert Shelton has been sentenced in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to four years in prison for firing gunshots outside Choffin Career Center last spring.
Shelton, 20, of Alameda Avenue, pleaded guilty to felonious assault and a firearm specification. Judge James C. Evans gave him credit for 491 days he's served in the county jail awaiting trial.
As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, Shelton is to testify against 22-year-old Leopoldo Prieto of Lansdowne Boulevard, who is scheduled for trial Sept. 19 on charges of complicity to felonious assault and taking a firearm into a school safety zone.
Police said Shelton, Prieto and a Choffin student got into an argument outside The Rayen School in March 2000. When the student left Rayen for Choffin, Prieto and Shelton followed him. A fight broke out and shots were fired. No one was struck by the bullets.