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Campbell man gets 6 years for home invasion, robbery
‘This is incredibly reprehensible,’ the prosecutor said of a home invasion.
YOUNGSTOWN — A man who invaded a Canfield Township home and robbed and restrained a woman there is going to prison for six years.
Rickie Gonzalez, 44, of 12th Street, Campbell, drew the sentence Wednesday from Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
A DNA match from a cigarette butt left at the crime scene linked Gonzalez to the Sept. 27, 2007, home invasion on South Raccoon Road.
The county sheriff’s department, which investigated the case, retrieved the cigarette butt at the scene and sent it to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, which matched the DNA to Gonzalez.
Judge D’Apolito imposed six years each on the kidnapping, robbery and aggravated burglary counts, to which Gonzalez pleaded guilty as charged, and made those sentences concurrent.
The judge also made a one-year sentence for an unrelated charge of receiving stolen property, to which Gonzalez pleaded guilty, concurrent with the home invasion sentence.
However, the judge made the six years he imposed for the Mahoning County crimes consecutive to an 11-month prison sentence Gonzalez is serving for another receiving-stolen-property conviction in Trumbull County. After prison, Gonzalez will be on parole for five years.
“There was no intention by Mr. Gonzalez to commit a murder, to commit a rape, or anything such as that,” Thomas E. Zena, his defense lawyer, told the judge.
Gonzalez apologized for his actions and said he intended to commit a burglary, but not a robbery or kidnapping. Saying he was under the influence of crack cocaine at the time of the home invasion, he added: “I wasn’t in my right state of mind.”
“You ought to just thank God that you weren’t so bad that you did something to harm this lady,” the judge told Gonzalez. If the victim had been seriously hurt, the judge added that he would have imposed a much longer prison term.
Gonzalez forced his way into the residence, restrained the victim and robbed her of $380, a digital camera and a laptop computer, the sheriff’s department said.
Gonzalez grabbed the victim, who is in her 70s, around the neck and dragged her around the house as he searched for money and items he could steal, the sheriff’s department added.
As Gonzalez fled, the victim obtained a description of his vehicle.
The victim, who resides in Nevada, was visiting her daughter at the Canfield residence, said Jennifer McLaughlin, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor.
“This is incredibly reprehensible. This is a victim who did nothing to put herself in harm’s way. She’s at a home in Canfield minding her own business. She’s elderly, and this man forces himself in, terrorizes her, and thank God, didn’t hurt her,” McLaughlin said after court. “She could have been hurt badly,” the prosecutor added.
In the plea agreement, McLaughlin dropped the repeat-violent-offender specification, which could have added one to 10 consecutive years in prison if Gonzalez had received a maximum sentence for any of his crimes in the home invasion.
That specification referred to Gonzalez’s July 1996 aggravated robbery conviction in Hudson County, N.J.