Campbell man who assaulted baby gets 5 years in prison

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — A 20-year-old Campbell man who admitted assaulting a 16-month-old South Side boy in July will serve five years in prison for the crime.

Jerbrail Grhim, of Monroe Street, was sentenced Thursday by Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge R. Scott Krichbaum. He had pleaded guilty to a charge of felonious assault in the case.

Prosecutors and the defense had arranged a plea bargain with a recommendation for a four-year prison sentence with a promise of no objections to Grhim’s judicial release from prison after two years, provided that he behaves in prison, obtains his GED and participates in prison programming.

Judge Krichbaum went further, ordering Grhim to serve five years in prison followed by three years of parole.

Noting that Grhim was on probation on another Mahoning County charge at the time of the assault, Judge Krichbaum ordered that the felonious-assault sentence be served consecutively to any sentence Grhim received for probation violation.

Prosecutor Gabe Wildman said Grhim was on probation for receiving stolen property and has already been sentenced to 18 months’ incarceration for violating that probation.

Grhim will get credit for about 145 days he’s already been in jail but is still looking at a total of about six years behind bars, Wildman said.

Before sentencing, Wildman told the court that the child has recovered from his physical injuries but is still dealing with emotional problems, including a fear of strange men and a fear of water.

April Weaver, the child’s mother, confirmed that, telling the court that her son is even afraid to go to his uncles, whom he knows.

“When you run water, he starts screaming,” she said.

Weaver said she left her young son and her two other children, ages 6 and 2, with Grhim when she left the East Lucius Avenue house that day. Police reported there were two other children there as well.

She said she had met Grhim a few months before the assault and that they had been living together a short time before her son was beaten. Grhim is not related to the child.

“I don’t even know why it happened. I blame myself every day,” she told the court, adding that she would like to ask Grhim why he did it.

“There’s no explanation for this,” Judge Krichbaum said, adding that someone who does this to a child “is beyond human consideration.”

Police reports on the assault said the boy had been beaten with a wire coat hanger, punched and held underwater in a bathtub, and it was the child’s grandmother, Shirley Weaver, who went to her daughter’s home and rescued the child, who was taken to Akron Children’s Hospital for treatment. She told police that Grhim had tried to conceal the child’s injuries and didn’t want him taken to a hospital.

Grhim, who apologized to the court and the child’s family, said he is taking responsibility for his actions.

His attorney, Terry Grenga, told the court that Grhim gave her an account of what happened that day that differs from the police version.

She said that Grhim, who has no parenting skills, awoke to find himself with five children left in his care. He was trying to give the youngest Weaver child a bath and noticed that he had a bruise on his head. He left the child alone in the bathtub to go to Shirley Weaver’s nearby home to tell her of the injury, and, when he got back, found the child underwater, struggling to breathe, Grenga said.

Medical records confirmed that it didn’t appear the child had been forcefully held under water, she said.

Grhim got the boy out of the tub and tried to console him, but the child wouldn’t stop crying, and Grhim admitted losing control and striking the child, Grenga said.

“I don’t believe that is what happened,” Judge Krichbaum said.

gwin@vindy.com