Moore resentenced to 112 years

The defendant wants to appeal his sentence for a third time.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Brandon Moore appeared a third time for sentencing before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum for his role in the kidnapping, robbery and gang rape of a 21-year-old Boardman woman at gunpoint in August 2001.

On Thursday, Moore, 22, drew the same 112-year prison term he received in the previous resentencing by the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge. His lawyer, Jennifer McLaughlin, said Moore wants to appeal Thursday’s sentencing.

The judge originally had sentenced Moore to 141 years in prison in 2002 after he was convicted of committing the crimes against the woman on Detroit Avenue and of a separate armed robbery of a couple in Youngstown earlier on the same evening

Moore was only 15 when he committed the crimes, but he was tried as an adult by a jury and convicted.

In 2005, Judge Krichbaum reduced the sentence to 112 years after the 7th District Court of Appeals ruled the judge was limited to sentencing on four gun specifications, not the 10 for which he originally imposed sentences.

For example, the judge originally sentenced Moore on a gun specification for each of the six rape counts, but the appellate court limited him to one gun specification for all six rape counts combined.

The appellate court also dismissed a count of conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, together with the sentence on that charge.

A second appeal to the same appellate court, filed by J. Dean Carro, a University of Akron law professor, successfully contended that, in the 2005 resentencing, Judge Krichbaum relied on provisions of Ohio’s sentencing law which were later found unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court.

The appellate judges declared that Judge Krichbaum erred in 2005 by making factual findings at sentencing that weren’t elements of the charges and hadn’t specifically been presented to the jury.

Judge Krichbaum heard an apology from Moore and his mother, Angela Moore, and a request from McLaughlin that the judge consider allowing Moore to be freed from prison later in life.

But the judge concurred with the 112-year recommendation from Dawn Krueger, assistant county prosecutor.

“The repeated heartless, senseless, vicious crimes that were committed by these men are beyond anything I’ve seen before,” the judge said of the attack on the woman. “It is the intention of this court that you should never be released from the penitentiary,” the judge told Moore, an inmate at the Mansfield Correctional Center.

In the same case, Judge Krichbaum sentenced co-defendants Chaz Bunch to 105 years, Andre Bundy to 18 years, and Jamar Collier to seven years in prison. Callier testified in the case after pleading guilty to reduced charges.