TRUMBULL COUNTY Prosecutors plan to rest case in killing

Defense attorneys haven't said if their client will testify.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- As early as Tuesday, a jury in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court could begin deciding whether a Howland Township woman murdered her husband.
Prosecutors plan to rest their case Tuesday morning, said Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor. Attorneys representing Donna Roberts will then get a chance to call their own witnesses.
Attys. J. Gerald Ingram and John Juhasz, who represent Roberts, declined to say whether they plan to call any witnesses or whether their client will testify.
There is a possibility that closing statements could be made Tuesday, court officials said. After closing statements, the judge will read instructions to the jury and then jurors will begin deliberations.
Roberts, who could face the death penalty if convicted, faces charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary.
About the case
Prosecutors said Roberts and her lover, Nathaniel Jackson, conspired to kill her estranged husband, Robert Fingerhut. Prosecutors said Roberts wanted her husband to be killed so she could cash in two life insurance policies that were in his name. Roberts stood to collect $550,000, prosecutors said.
Roberts corresponded often with Jackson, who was in prison. Roberts and Jackson, 29, wrote hundreds of letters to each other, some discussing their plans to kill Fingerhut when Jackson was released from prison, authorities say.
Roberts and Jackson were accused of killing Fingerhut on Dec. 11, 2001, in the Fonderlac Drive Southeast home Roberts and Fingerhut shared, just two days after Jackson was released from prison after serving one year on a Mahoning County conviction for receiving stolen property.
On much of the same evidence pending in this trial, Jackson was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary in the Fingerhut case and has been sentenced to death.
He is appealing.
sinkovich@vindy.com