Man gets year in prison for slashing bouncer

Medical bills for the injury were $16,000.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — A Jacksonville, Fla., truck driver was sentenced to one year in prison for slashing the head and neck of a bouncer at an Austintown strip club in March 2007.

Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced Krandall D. Kirkland, 37, for injuring Jason W. Chappell, 34, of Youngstown, as Chappell escorted Kirkland out of Club 76 on Seventy-Six Drive.

Chappell received stitches at St. Elizabeth Health Center.

Chappell later filed a civil suit against Kirkland seeking compensatory damages of $25,000 and punitive damages of $75,000 for the injury.

In court Friday, Martin Desmond, an assistant county prosecutor, said the medical costs paid for the injuries were $16,000, and Chappell needs an additional $6,000 in plastic surgery.

Judge Evans issued a judgment in the civil suit against Kirkland in October, ordering Kirkland to pay Chappell $75,000. That came after Kirkland failed to respond to the lawsuit Chappell filed in July 2007.

Chappell’s attorney, Scott Cochran, said Kirkland has not paid the $75,000.

In court, Kirkland apologized to the court and to Chappell.

“It was a misunderstanding,” he said. “I don’t go around hurting people. If I was given a second chance to make restitution, I would do that,” he said.

Judge Evans, however, said Kirkland’s lengthy criminal record indicates that what happened at the club was “far from a misunderstanding.”

Kirkland pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated assault, a fourth-degree felony, last month. The penalty for that crime is from six to 18 months in prison.