Past torture victim arrested in theft, flight from police

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — A 26-year-old Leavittsburg man who was the victim in a recent torture case is charged with stealing from the Family Dollar store on West Market Street and running from police.

Shane P. DeSmith of Riverview Drive pleaded innocent to theft and obstructing official business Wednesday in Warren Municipal Court.

He was charged Tuesday after he was arrested near the store, 2830 W. Market Street in the Austin Village Plaza.

A Warren police officer spotted DeSmith about 6 p.m. running from the store. The officer chased the man on foot and ordered him to stop.

The man threw down something and yelled back that he wasn’t stopping, because there was a warrant for his arrest.

Officer Seth Simpson caught DeSmith as he was trying to climb a fence, a Warren police report says.

Store personnel said DeSmith took a prepaid telephone worth $20 and ran out the front door.

Judge Thomas Gysegem ordered that DeSmith be held without bond and scheduled DeSmith to return to court at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 30.

In February, two men tortured DeSmith for seven hours in the basement of a home in Warren. DeSmith said the men were punishing him for failing to make good on a $50 debt he owed them for marijuana he got from them.

DeSmith described being tortured with a grinder, burned with a torch, heated screwdriver and hot Mason jar, hit with a sledgehammer, hit over the head with a bottle and shocked with a battery.

Two of his attackers were sentenced to prison and a third awaits sentencing.