Victim: Life turned 'upside down'

The robber took $1,000 and a photograph of the victim's deceased father.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A city woman says a robbery at her home July 18 -- when a 20-year-old man took her purse inside her front door -- has "turned my life upside down and ruined my faith in others."
Patricia Simon of West Avenue Northwest made the remarks to Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court at the sentencing for Dustin L. DeSmith of 4400 Berkshire Drive S.E.
Simon received a one-year term for this robbery; he awaits sentencing later this week in another robbery.
He pleaded guilty Nov. 7 to forgery, burglary and two counts of theft in the purse snatching. His sentences carried jail terms totaling two years, but the four sentences will run at the same time, and the longest sentence of the four is one year.
Victim's remarks
"It is my opinion ... Dustin L. DeSmith is nothing but a downright no good and useless person that does not even deserve to breathe the same air as we do who have worked and scrimped all our lives to get where we are today," Simon told the court.
The woman said she was entering her home that day when DeSmith came up through her yard and onto her porch while she had the key in the front door. She said DeSmith shoved her into the house while the keys were still in the lock and took her purse containing about $1,000 and personal items. She had intended to use the cash to pay her property taxes that day, she said.
"The most precious possession taken was the one and only picture of my deceased father," she said in court. She said she has not received the purse or any of its contents back.
"I am not relaxed or comfortable in my own home. I am in a constant state of fear," she said of how the robbery has changed her. "Dustin L. DeSmith deserves the maximum penalty that the judge hands down."
"This has had a major effect on me," Simon said after the hearing. "I used to be Miss Personality plus, but now I have good days and bad. I wasn't nervous standing up there and talking," she said of the court appearance. "I wanted to tell the sucker how I felt."
During sentencing, Judge Kontos told DeSmith, "You can see the psychological effect is more serious than the physical harm that is done."
DeSmith also pleaded guilty Nov. 17 in Judge John Stuard's courtroom to robbery and is scheduled to be sentenced for that crime Thursday.
runyan@vindy.com