TRUMBULL COUNTY Court of appeals upholds rape conviction

The victim was able to free her hands from the hook long enough to dial 911.
WARREN -- The 11th District Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of a Howland man who hung a woman from a basement hook and abused her.
Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas court in March 2003 sentenced Dennis Stambolia, 36, to 32 years in prison for rape, kidnapping and felonious assault. He was also classified as a sexually oriented offender.
Stambolia was arrested Sept. 22, 2002, after the 32-year-old woman, whom he knew, escaped and called police to his Perkins-Jones Road home, where he briefly held the Trumbull County Sheriff's Department SWAT team at bay. The case was investigated by Howland Township police.
Before sentencing, Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, told Judge McKay that Stambolia had attempted to recruit a jail inmate to kill the woman. Stambolia, however, was not charged with any other crime.
Part of his appeal had argued that the trial court erred in considering inappropriate information while sentencing him.
Factors
Although the judge discussed the alleged plot to kill the victim, "that was not the only factor he measured in sentencing," the appeals court wrote. "He considered 15 other factors in imposing sentence. While the court concluded that appellant had a proclivity toward violence, it did not use the uncharged offenses as the sole basis for its sentence.
" ... Therefore, any error that occurred was harmless under the circumstances in view of the other overwhelming factors considered by the court in support of its sentencing."
Judges Judith A. Christley and Cynthia Westcott Rice concurred with Judge Donald R. Ford.
What happened
The court document says Stambolia had dragged the woman to the basement and ordered her to get undressed. He bound her hands and legs with wire, gagged her mouth, put a hood over her head and taped it to her face, and dangled her from a ceiling mounted hook.
She was able to lift the gag a little bit and free her hands from the hook long enough to dial 911 on Stambolia's cell phone, which he had left in the basement. She told the dispatcher she was scared and left the phone on after he returned to the basement.
The audiotape of the 911 call was played at the trial, and the woman was heard saying, "Dennis, stop. You're hurting me."
When another man entered the home and was upstairs with Stambolia, the woman unhooked herself, untied her legs, and ran up the stairs naked. The other man drove her to her mother's house, and her mother called the police and took her to the hospital.
Police found Stambolia in the attic.