Parents of girl, 10, charged in fake abduction
The girl was part of the kidnapping scheme, police say.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
LIBERTY -- The parents of a 10-year-old girl have been arrested in connection with faking the girl's abduction.
"It's just a goofy case," Capt. Richard Tisone said Wednesday after John Brown, 53, of North Maryland Avenue, Youngtown, and Lora L. Maravia, 34, of Hadley Avenue, Liberty, surrendered to township police.
They were arrested after being secretly indicted Tuesday by a Trumbull County grand jury. They are being held in the Trumbull County jail awaiting arraignment today.
Brown and Maravia are charged with one count each of inducing panic and tampering with evidence, both felonies, and child endangering, a misdemeanor.
Tisone said he doesn't have a clear idea what Brown and Maravia had hoped to accomplish in hatching the reported scheme.
The couple has two children together, but are not married, the captain said.
The fake abduction apparently centered around an argument Brown was having with his former girlfriend.
Police Chief Anthony Slifka said the girl, Alesha Brown, was involved in the hoax. "She was told to lie to the police," the chief said.
Police said that a four-hour search by Liberty and Youngstown police was kicked off after Brown notified police that his daughter was missing. Brown told police he'd returned home after taking Maravia to work and found the girl missing.
Found
Alesha was found that evening inside McDonald's on Mahoning Avenue, Youngstown.
She told police at the time that she'd been abducted from her mother's Liberty home at gunpoint by two men who put her into an SUV and threatened to kill her. When the SUV supposedly got to McDonald's, she said she jumped out and ran inside and yelled for help.
Tisone said Brown was angry with a former girlfriend who lives on Connecticut Avenue on Youngstown's West Side.
Brown and Maravia, Tisone said, left some of their daughter's school and personal items in the back yard of the Connecticut Avenue residence.
The day of the fake abduction, Brown told police that his daughter might be at two locations -- North Evanston Avenue and Connecticut.
The man living at the Evanston home told police he was friends of Alesha's family but hadn't seen her.
At Connecticut, a woman told police she once dated Brown, and that there was conflict between them when she and Brown split up.
Police found the girl's school papers and purse behind the garage in the grass at Connecticut. Tisone said Youngstown police were lured to the former girlfriend's residence by Brown so they could find the girl's belongings.
yovich@vindy.com