Austintown man pleads guilty to child rapes

YOUNGSTOWN — A 21-year-old Austintown man has pleaded guilty to raping a boy and a girl and faces three to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced.

Steven A. Brush of Pine Trace Street entered his plea Friday before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who will sentence him at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 28.

Brush pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, one pertaining to a 7-year-old boy in 2004 and the other pertaining to a girl, who was 9 and 10 years old when the offense occurred between September 2005 and December 2006.

Mandatory life sentence provisions to those counts were dropped in the plea agreement. Three other rape counts, all pertaining to the boy, also were dropped.

Natasha Frenchko, assistant county prosecutor, recommended a three-year prison term, but Judge Krichbaum said he wouldn’t be bound by that recommendation.

The prosecution made the agreement in part because Brush is mildly mentally retarded, had a troubled childhood, and because it wanted to avoid putting the victims through the ordeal of testifying in a trial, Frenchko said. The victims’ parents said they didn’t want Brush to go to prison, Frenchko added.

After he leaves prison, Brush will be on parole for five years and required to register quarterly with the sheriff as a sex offender for the rest of his life, said the judge, who revoked Brush’s bond.

Defense lawyer Terry Grenga declined to comment.