Man receives 29 years for rape and abduction

The Warren man will have to be registered as a habitual sex offender.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Stacey Sellers of Warren has spent two-thirds of his 45 years of life behind bars, and he'll spend nearly 30 years more in prison after his guilty plea to robbery, abduction and rape charges.
Sellers appeared Monday before Judge Maureen A. Cronin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, agreeing to plead guilty to two counts of aggravated robbery, one count of abduction and one count of rape in exchange for the prosecutor's office's dropping a repeat violent offender specification on the two robbery and single rape counts.
As part of the agreement, Sellers will be registered as a habitual sex offender, which means he will have to notify the sheriff's office of his address once a year for 20 years after his release from prison.
The prosecutor's office recommended a total of 18 years' prison time for the four offenses, but Judge Cronin, saying she feared that Sellers will just go back to his old habits of attacking women if he is released from prison, handed him 29 years behind bars.
She pointed out that he was on parole on aggravated robbery charges when he committed the crimes that brought him to court Monday.
Crimes
Sellers brandished a knife in an attempted theft from a woman near the Youngstown State University campus on Nov. 20, 2004, but she was able to fight him off, Judge Cronin said.
The next day, he attacked another woman near the same location, again brandishing a knife, and this time abducting the victim, forcing her to drive with him around Trumbull County and then raping her, Judge Cronin said.
He was arrested two days later and has spent the past 730 days in jail and will be given credit for that time on his 29-year sentence.
His attorney, James Melone, said that his client accepts responsibility for what happened and that he was abusing crack cocaine at the time of the crimes and has a variety of psychological problems.
Judge Cronin gave Sellers nine years on the aggravated robbery charge in the Nov. 20 attack, five more years for the aggravated robbery in the Nov. 21 attack, five additional years for the Nov. 21 abduction and 10 additional years for the Nov. 21 rape -- all to be served consecutively.
gwin@vindy.com