Teen gets reduced sentence in assault

The victim's father had asked for the stiffest penalty possible.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- "You will see the full eight-year sentence if you do not take advantage of this golden opportunity," Judge C. Ashley Pike warned 16-year-old Tommy Hart after sentencing him to six months in prison.
Judge Pike announced the sentence in Hart's assault case Friday in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court, ordering him to serve five years of probation after his prison term.
Assistant Prosecutor Tammie Riley Jones had asked for two years behind bars for Hart, who pleaded guilty July 18 to beating a schoolmate after gym class Dec. 10 at Leetonia High School.
Hart was charged with felonious assault, a second-degree felony, and was tried as an adult.
What happened
Jones recounted that Hart severely beat 14-year-old Nicholas Aratari after gym class, slamming his head against a wooden bench and punching him repeatedly in the face as Hart held him by the shirt collar on the floor. Jones said Hart continued to punch Nicholas after he became unconscious.
The prosecutor said the beating shattered Nicholas' orbital bone, and he underwent surgery to place a steel plate in his head. He was hospitalized for four days immediately after the attack and still experiences bouts of double vision.
Joel Aratari, Nicholas' father, said his son has suffered permanent physical damage and every member of the family has suffered. He asked Judge Pike for the stiffest penalty possible.
Counting time served in the county juvenile correctional facility and the county jail, Hart has been incarcerated 248 days. He was originally charged as a juvenile, but in March, Judge Thomas Baronzzi of county juvenile court ordered his case bound over to adult court. The order followed a hearing that the judge said demonstrated Hart would not be amenable to rehabilitation in the juvenile court system.