YOUNGSTOWN Women recants confession as she receives her sentence

Charlotte Moreland said she covered up for someone who had threatened her.
YOUNGSTOWN -- An Elm Street woman was put in prison Friday for a crime to which she'd confessed and then recanted.
Charlotte Moreland, 24, said she was covering up for someone else when she pleaded guilty in April to one count of arson. She spoke up about it to her lawyer, Renee LaCivita, just as her sentencing hearing was about to start Friday.
LaCivita asked that Moreland be allowed to withdraw her plea, but Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court refused. He said she'd had ample time to come forward since April.
He sentenced Moreland to 15 months in the Marysville Correctional Facility for Women.
Assistant prosecutor Lori Shells said Moreland set fire to a house on East Evergreen Avenue in April 2002. No one was injured.
Moreland told Judge Evans that she didn't speak up sooner because her life had been threatened.
"Due to that fear, she was willing to take the rap for this," LaCivita said.
Past crimes
She also said Moreland was recently diagnosed with a mental health condition for which she is being treated. Moreland's past crimes were committed before she began treatment, LaCivita said.
But Judge Evans said Moreland's criminal history showed a pattern of being arrested for misdemeanor offenses and being placed on probation. Several of her past cases are unresolved.
"It appears that this young lady has a very good manner of knowing how to work the system," Judge Evans said.