COURT CASE Convict says plea was coerced

The Austintown man is serving a 13-year prison sentence.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Less than a week after he was sentenced for the shooting death of his friend, Raymond Crites says he wants to recant his plea of guilty and get a new lawyer.
Crites, 30, of Austintown, says in court documents that his lawyer, Anthony P. Meranto, coerced him to enter into a plea agreement instead of taking his case to trial.
Meranto, who had not seen the handwritten motion Crites filed this week in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, denied the allegation. He filed an appeal of Crites' sentence Wednesday with the 7th District Court of Appeals.
Crites was sentenced last week to 10 years in prison for the voluntary manslaughter of 33-year-old John Deiley last summer. The charge was reduced from murder in exchange for the guilty plea. He also got a consecutive three-year sentence for using a firearm.
Unexpected sentence
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum imposed the maximum sentence of 10 years despite a recommendation of nine years from Assistant Prosecutor Patrick R. Pochiro.
Crites said in court documents that because the judge deviated from the recommended nine-year sentence, the agreement should be set aside. Ohio law places the final word on sentencing in the judge's hands despite plea-agreement recommendations, however.
Crites wrote in his motion that when he told Meranto in May that he wanted to withdraw the guilty plea he'd entered in April, Meranto became enraged and threatened that Crites would go to prison for life if he took back the plea.
"That is an absolute lie," Meranto said when told of the allegation. Meranto said he asked Crites in the courtroom last week whether he wanted to withdraw the plea and Crites said he did not.
Crites also filed documents asking Judge Krichbaum to order Youngstown police to return $720 cash that was taken from Crites' pocket when he was arrested in Deiley's murder in June 2003.
bjackson@vindy.com