MAHONING COUNTY In child-rape case, judge ups sentence
Lawyers agreed to a sentence, but the judge said it wasn't enough.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Charles Gant got more than he bargained for Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
The 44-year-old Halleck Street man expected a 16-year prison sentence for raping a little girl, to which he had pleaded guilty in August. Instead, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum tacked on four more years, giving him a 20-year sentence.
"I have to check my anger and try to compose myself when I consider what happened in this case," the judge said.
Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Krueger said Gant, 44, had sexual intercourse with a 7-year-old girl several times between November 2001 and December 2002. The girl, now 9, was a daughter of Gant's former girlfriend's.
"She was robbed of her innocence as a child," the girl's father said Thursday. "She's got to live with this for the rest of her life."
Tested for disease
Krueger said at the August plea hearing that the victim contracted a venereal disease from the assaults, but said Thursday that Gant has since been tested for the disease and does not have it. She was unsure how the little girl got the disease.
If Gant had been convicted of the original charges against him, he could have been sentenced to life in prison. But as part of the plea agreement between Krueger, Gant and defense attorney Michael Gollings, the life possibility was dropped and Krueger recommended a four-year sentence for each of four counts, or 16 years.
Judge Krichbaum said he understood that Krueger and the girl's family made the deal to spare the girl the trauma of having to testify in open court, but he didn't believe 16 years was enough. Under Ohio law, the judge has the final say on sentencing despite recommendations from lawyers.
The judge sentenced Gant to five years per count and, as required by law, gave him credit for 472 days spent in the county jail awaiting trial.
Gant can appeal the sentence because the judge deviated from what the lawyers had agreed on in the plea agreement. Gant said he will appeal to the 7th District Court of Appeals.
bjackson@vindy.com