YSU robber gets 421‚Ñ2 years

By ASHLEY LUTHERN

Davis was on parole when he committed the four robberies, the prosecutor said.

YOUNGSTOWN — Willie Lee Davis has been sentenced to 42 and a half years in prison for assault on a police officer, failure to comply with a police order and four counts of aggravated robbery.

Davis, 39, was convicted in June for using a fake gun to take cash and a car from four Youngstown State University students April 22, 2007.

He received the maximum sentence recommended by the prosecution. Judge James C. Evans of the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who presided over the trial, sentenced Davis on Thursday after saying that the defendant had “not shown any genuine remorse” and was “very likely to commit a future crime.”

Four years were added to Davis’ sentences for robbery for being a repeat violent offender. Davis, of Bennington and Stewart avenues in Youngstown, was convicted of aggravated burglary in 1995 and released from prison May 1, 2006. He was still on parole when he robbed the four YSU students less than a year later.

Prosecutors said that Davis robbed a female YSU student of $25 in cash in the parking lot near her dormitory at about 9 p.m. and ordered her into the passenger seat of her car. When he wasn’t able to operate the manual transmission, he fled on foot. About 90 minutes later, he robbed three other female students in a parking lot near their on-campus apartment.

In that robbery, Davis got $10 in cash and drove off with their car, which Youngstown police officer Michael Marciano spotted on Albert Street a short time after the robbery.

Davis stopped the car at a dead end on Kimmel Street on the East Side after a high-speed car chase and fled into the woods. Marciano caught up with Davis in the woods, struggled to arrest him and eventually put Davis in a “sleeper hold,” rendering him unconscious.

Police recovered a toy gun from Davis a short time later.

None of the victims appeared in court to issues statements, but Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Martin P. Desmond said that the maximum sentence was requested because each student had been accosted with what was assumed by them to be a real gun and had it not been for a stick-shift vehicle, Davis might have kidnapped the first student that he robbed.

He added that Davis was driving 50 to 75 miles per hour in a residential area and that the ensuing struggle with Marciano was “a fight to the death.”

“[Marciano] was in fear for his life when Willie said ‘I’m not going back,’” Desmond said, meaning back to prison.

Davis was given the maximum sentence of five years for failure to comply with a police order, 18 months for assault on a police officer and eight years for each of the four counts of aggravated robbery, plus the four additional years for being a repeat violent offender.

In a statement after sentencing, Davis wiped away his tears and said that he felt the court judged him for the past and that God was the ultimate judge. He added that he was obviously on “heavy medication” to commit the crimes with a toy gun.