Drugstore robber set free on strict probation
Violating probation means finishing the prison term, a judge warns.
YOUNGSTOWN — A man who robbed a Cornersburg drugstore in October 2007 and engaged police in a standoff at his Cascade Drive residence before being arrested has been released from prison and placed in a halfway house.
On Monday, Judge James C. Evans placed Christopher R. Bosi, 33, on three years’ probation and ordered him to enter and complete the six-month residential program at the Community Corrections Association, where he will receive alcohol and drug treatment and mental health counseling.
If Bosi violates his probation, the judge warned, he’ll be sent back to prison to complete his four-year sentence for the Walgreen’s robbery, to which he pleaded guilty.
“I believe that I’m a changed man,” Bosi told the judge. Bosi said he has spent his 13 months of confinement in county jail and the Belmont Correctional Institution bettering himself and has been “in meditation” concerning changing his life.
Bosi’s lawyer, Thomas E. Zena, said his client has struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues, but has “a strong family base,” including some family members who were in attendance at Monday’s judicial release hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Mark L. Hockensmith, assistant county prosecutor, said that he would not oppose judicial release if Bosi went directly to CCA’s residential program and that the store clerk Bosi robbed was in agreement with his release under this condition.
The Walgreens clerk told Austintown police Bosi lifted his sweatshirt, exposing a handgun tucked into his pants as he asked for all the $10 and $20 bills.
The partial license plate number a witness gave police led them to Bosi’s home, where the standoff ensued a few hours after the robbery.
The crisis response team of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force set up a perimeter at Bosi’s house, and he eventually surrendered. The task force was aided by officers from Youngstown, Boardman and Austintown, and Mahoning County sheriff’s deputies.
Bosi was taken from the standoff to St. Elizabeth Health Center after he told police he had injected heroin and cocaine.
An Austintown police officer said he wrestled with Bosi at the hospital when he became violent. The officer’s shoulder was injured, the officer said, but he did not seek treatment.
Hockensmith said he had no record of charges being filed in the standoff or the hospital incident.