Three get prison for abduction, robbery

The prosecutor said he was glad the trio will be off the streets but wished their sentences were longer.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Three city men are going to spend time in prison for abducting and robbing a city man on the East Side in April 2003.
And they may face more penitentiary time if they violate the terms of lengthy probations after they are released.
At a hearing Wednesday, Judge Maureen A. Cronin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced: Rashard Willis, 27, of Republic Avenue; Jermaine Tillis, 32, of Dean Street, and his brother, Terrence Tillis, 29, of McClure Avenue.
In March, Willis and Jermaine Tillis pleaded guilty to charges of abduction and aggravated robbery with a gun specification. Terrence Tillis pleaded guilty to those same charges, plus a charge of assault on a police officer.
Sentences
Judge Cronin spent considerable time going over the sentences with each defendant and their lawyers.
She sentenced Terrence Tillis to one year on the gun specification and one year for assaulting a police officer. He already has served two years in the county jail waiting for the case to finish, and he will receive credit for time served.
The judge put him on a five-year probation after he gets out of prison, and said if he violates any rules tied to that probation, she would send him back to the penitentiary for 15 years on the abduction and aggravated robbery charges.
Jermaine Tillis will do two years in prison -- one year for the gun specification and one year for abduction. After his prison term, he will be placed on a three-year probation. The judge said any probation violation will result in her sending him back to prison for six years on the aggravated robbery charge.
Willis got the biggest break. The judge gave him one year on the gun specification, and he will serve six months at the Community Corrections Association on Market Street in an intensive drug rehabilitation program.
The judge put him on a five-year probation, and he must get a full-time job and begin paying child support for his four children.
If he violates any of those terms, the judge said she would put him in prison for the balance of his sentence, which would be a total of 15 years -- five years on the abduction charge and 10 years on the aggravated robbery.
He was given credit for the 2 1/2 years he has spent in jail awaiting the final disposition of the case.
Martin P. Desmond, an assistant county prosecutor, said Willis received the break because he indicated he would have testified against the Tillises had the case gone to trial.
Desmond added the state would have liked to have seen more prison time for the trio, but added he was "glad to see them off the street for at least some period of time."
Desmond said back in March that the diligence of the victim and the cooperation they received from him was instrumental in getting the three to plead guilty.
What happened
Police reports say Willis and Terrence Tillis struck a car with their vehicle as its driver was trying to turn into a driveway in the 800 block of North Garland Avenue.
The two men then reportedly got out of their car, pointed handguns at the driver of the other auto and ordered him out.
The victim told police the two men forced him to change a tire on their car and then forced him inside it.
The two men drove their car and the victim's car to a house in the 700 block of Dean Street where Jermaine Tillis was waiting.
Jermaine Tillis, the report states, threatened the abducted man with a gun while Willis went to a bedroom and Terrence Tillis stayed in the abducted man's car.
The victim told police he was able to escape after Jermaine Tillis fell asleep.The victim called police around 6:45 a.m. from a house in the 400 block of Sunshine Avenue.
Police then accompanied the victim to the Dean Street residence where he had said he was held captive. The victim's car and the car that had run into his were both parked in the driveway.
Terrence Tillis was at the rear door and closed it on an officer's arm and foot when the officer tried to speak with him, the report shows.
Other officers immediately pushed the door open and chased Terrence Tillis through the dining room, where two loaded handguns were found on the table.
With an officer in pursuit, Terrence Tillis ran upstairs and into a bedroom closet. Willis was also in the bedroom and refused officers' orders to leave the room, the report shows.
Jermaine Tillis, who was seated on a sofa when police chased Terrence Tillis through the downstairs, was arrested.
Police eventually forced Terrence Tillis out of the closet and arrested him.