In plea deal, man gets 10-year term for rapes

YOUNGSTOWN — A 21-year-old Austintown man is going to prison for 10 years for raping a boy and a girl.

Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the sentence Thursday on Steven A. Brush of Pine Trace Street, who had pleaded guilty to two counts of rape Jan. 4. Brush got a five-year sentence on each count to be served consecutively.

Brush raped a 7-year-old boy in 2004 and a girl, who was 9 and 10 years old when the offense occurred between September 2005 and December 2006.

After prison, Brush will be on parole for five years and must register as a sex offender quarterly with the sheriff in the county he resides in as long as he lives.

In the plea agreement, mandatory life sentence provisions were dropped, and three other rape counts, all pertaining to the boy, also were dropped.

The prosecution made the agreement in part because Brush is mildly mentally retarded and had a troubled childhood, and because it wanted to avoid putting the victims through the ordeal of testifying in a trial, said Natasha Frenchko, assistant county prosecutor.

Frenchko had recommended a three-year prison term on each count to be served concurrently.

“This is a tragedy in so many different ways,” said Brush’s lawyer, Terry Grenga. Brush, who has lived in 16 foster homes, “has been emotionally and sexually abused his entire life,” Grenga said after sentencing.