Salem man gets prison time on sexual battery charge

YOUNGSTOWN — A 24-year-old Salem man has been sentenced to three years in prison for having sex with a former high school friend while she was sleeping after a house party in Goshen Township.

Jason K. King, West 6th Street, will be eligible for probation after six months in prison, but Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court said today he hasn’t decided how soon he will get out.

In court, King’s attorney, Gary Van Brocklin, said King had sex with the woman at 7 a.m. in the same house where the two and others were having a party.

Van Brocklin said his client and others were drinking at the party, and his client was smoking marijuana.

James MacDonald, an assistant county prosecutor, said the victim also had been drinking July 3 but was mainly only asleep, not really impaired, the next morning when King had sex with her without her knowledge.

King pleaded guilty last month to a sexual battery charge, for which he could have gotten up to five years in prison.

For the complete story, see Wednesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com