YOUNGSTOWN Man sent to prison for beating wife

He hit the victim with the blunt side of a hatchet.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Elizabeth Johnson didn't mince words when a judge asked what her husband, Fred, had done to her last summer.
"He took a hatchet to me," she said, wiping tears from her reddened face. "Every time he hit me, he called me a b---- and said he was gonna kill me."
She wanted him to go to prison for what he'd done, but not for very long. She said his drug habit is largely what led to the violent attack.
"My husband was not a bad person until he started getting high," she said.
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced Fred Johnson to five years in prison for felonious assault, to which Johnson pleaded guilty in October.
The 38-year-old West Woodland Avenue man could have gotten up to eight years, but prosecutors recommended that he get no more than five. Assistant prosecutor Terry Grenga said that was part of the deal in exchange for his plea of guilty.
"The recommendation of five years is generous, in my opinion," Judge Krichbaum said, calling the attack "abhorrent."
What happened
Authorities said Mrs. Johnson was living with a relative on Thorne Street in July. Fred Johnson saw her leaving the house and became enraged, thinking she was going to see another man.
He blocked her from getting into a waiting taxi, then chased her back into the house, where he picked up a hatchet and hit her nearly a dozen times in the head, neck, side and stomach.
Defense attorney Louis DeFabio said he hit her with the blunt end of the hatchet, not the sharpened side.
He said Fred Johnson confessed his crime to police almost immediately and insisted all along on pleading guilty instead of going to trial.
"This is not a man who ever tried to hide from this," DeFabio said. "He admits that he did it, and he's willing to accept responsibility and punishment."
Fred Johnson apologized to his wife and said he still loves her.
"Nobody in this world should endure the pain that I caused her," he said. "Incarceration means nothing compared to losing my wife."
bjackson@vindy.com