South Side felon charged in rape

The defendant is a convicted felon granted early release from prison Feb. 29.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN —A 26-year-old South Side man is accused of raping a 22-year-old woman outside an East Midlothian Avenue bar.

Frank L. Sanders, who rents an apartment near the bar on East Midlothian, was video-arraigned Friday in municipal court on a rape charge. Judge Robert A. Douglas Jr. set bond at $250,000 and ordered that if the bond is posted, Sanders be placed on electronically monitored house arrest. The judge also instructed Sanders to have no contact with the accuser.

The woman was interviewed by Patrolwoman Shawna-Cie Ott around 1 a.m. Friday at St. Elizabeth Health Center. The hospital did a rape examination and turned the evidence over to police.

Police reports show the following sequence of events:

The woman arrived at the bar with friends around 10 p.m. Thursday when a man she didn’t know, later identified as Sanders, approached in a friendly manner and hugged the group of friends and began kissing her. He coaxed her outside to the back of the building, where the kissing continued. She began to cry when he pushed her against the building. Despite her pleas, she was raped twice.

He told her to not tell her friends.

Afterward, the woman found her purse and a female friend, and they left the bar. Back at her YSU dorm, a male friend took her and her female friend to the hospital emergency room.

While she was at the hospital, Sanders called the young woman’s cell phone several times and left messages. It’s not clear how he got the number.

Ott told her to answer one of the calls and tell Sanders to meet her back at the bar. During the conversation, Sanders asked “Do you feel like you were raped?” and inquired whether she had told anyone. He asked to speak to her female friend and when the friend got on the phone, he asked if she remembered what he looks like.

When it was clear that Sanders wasn’t going back to the bar, Ott got on the phone, identified herself as a police officer and told Sanders that the woman was in the process of pressing a rape charge. Ott told him to go back to the bar, where other officers were waiting, and tell his side of the story.

Sanders did return to the bar and was arrested around 3:30 a.m. Friday. When questioned about his clothes, he said he had changed, including his underwear.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge James C. Evans had granted Sanders early release from prison Feb. 29 and suspended the balance of the three-year sentence (minus 163 days he served in county jail) imposed on April 21, 2006. Judge Evans placed him on three years’ community control to be supervised by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority.

He also had to complete a day-reporting program at Community Corrections Association, a halfway facility on Market Street.

Sanders had been convicted of having a weapon under disability (meaning he was forbidden by law to have a firearm because of a felony conviction), improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle and possession of cocaine with a firearm specification.

In August 2002, Sanders was sentenced in common pleas court to two years’ community control after being convicted of possession of cocaine.