Repeat offender could get 96 years

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court has ruled that Charles L. Lemons III, convicted Monday of rape, kidnapping and felonious assault on a female relative, is also a repeat violent offender.

Judge Kontos had a hearing Tuesday at which John Mandopoulos, Warren’s police chief, testified to Lemons having been convicted in 1979 on a rape charge and a kidnapping charge for assaulting a 16-year-old female Warren Western Reserve High School student and abducting four male students.

Lemons, 52, of Karl Avenue Southwest in Warren Township, spent 25 years in prison for the crimes, getting out of prison in 2005.

On Monday, a jury found him guilty of raping a 21-year-old female relative in her apartment on North Feederle Drive Southeast in 2007 after hitting her five times in the head with a hammer.

Based on his convictions on five first-degree and second-degree felonies, Lemons had faced up to 48 years in prison, but being deemed a repeat violent offender adds the possibility that Judge Kontos could double the sentence to 96 years, the Trumbull County prosecutor’s office said.

Lemons’ sentencing is set for Feb. 23.