Man gets 5 years for beating girlfriend

YOUNGSTOWN — Billy Mock, the Youngstown man convicted of felonious assault for beating his girlfriend in March 2007 at his North Richview Avenue home, has been sentenced to five years in prison.

A jury convicted Mock, 41, last week in the courtroom of Judge Timothy E. Franken in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Mock faced between two and eight years in prison.

His girlfriend suffered neck injuries, a damaged spleen and bruises throughout her body. She was spitting up blood when she was treated in an emergency room after the beating and still faces back surgery because of her injuries.

The 32-year-old woman told police Mock slammed her head into a wall four or five times after the two returned home from looking at a car.

She said Mock also lifted her from a couch by her throat, threw her across a room and dragged her by her hair and beat her in the head with a rubber mallet.

She said Mock held her hostage in the house for four days — until she escaped by running outside when Mock stepped outside to get the mail.

Judge Franken sentenced Mock on Thursday morning as the victim sat in the courtroom. She declined to make a statement before sentencing.