Kirkpatrick trades a year for nine behind bars

Jason Kirkpatrick

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By Ed Runyan

The judge kept his word on what would happen to those who failed to complete their diversion program.

WARREN — In the end, Jason Kirkpatrick gambled and lost.

In September, Judge John M. Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court offered the 29-year-old Warren man an option of going to prison for 15 months for committing 16 burglaries across Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties or going to a faith-based diversion program in Detroit for a year.

The offer, however, came with this warning: If Kirkpatrick failed to complete the faith-based diversion program through some fault of his own, Judge Stuard promised to give him nine years in prison.

As Kirkpatrick’s lawyer, Joseph Fritz said in court Thursday during Kirkpatrick’s resentencing, the option involved Judge Stuard’s taking a risk on Kirkpatrick as well.

Kirkpatrick took a few moments to think it over and accepted, Fritz recalled.

One week into the program, however, Kirkpatrick was in trouble for building an “electric shock gun” with a disposable camera in order to play a prank.

The prank led to a confrontation between Kirkpatrick and other students, according to a report from supervisors in the program, called Life Challenge, which is an offshoot of Teen Challenge.

Life Challenge officials were aware of the punishment Kirkpatrick faced back in Ohio and hoped to find a way for Kirkpatrick to stay in the program.

“This kind of behavior was worthy of dismissal, but we were considering possible other options for Jason in light of his certain and severe prison sentence if he did not complete the program,” a memorandum from Life Challenge says.

But Kirkpatrick told Life Challenge he would “take his chances with the courts” and was dropped off at a bus station.

A week later, after returning home to Warren, he was picked up by police and scheduled for a probation violation hearing before Judge Stuard.

In court Thursday, Judge Stuard said he now realizes offering Kirkpatrick only 15 months in prison for his crimes was “a real gift.”

The judge said he didn’t realize at the time how much prison time Kirkpatrick already had served in the 11 years since he turned 18 — nearly 10 years from three judges.

The important thing now was that Kirkpatrick “made a deal,” Judge Stuard said, and he is a judge of his word. He gave Kirkpatrick the nine years.

Earlier in the hearing, Kirkpatrick told Judge Stuard the reason he could not compete Life Challenge was that the program was not what he had been told.

Pastor Chuck Gantz, a volunteer with the Youngstown chapter of Teen Challenge, had prayed with Kirkpatrick in the Trumbull County Jail and told Judge Stuard in September that he had seen something in Kirkpatrick that told him Kirkpatrick would succeed at Life Challenge.

Kirkpatrick said Gantz told him to expect to receive treatment for substance abuse and job training.

“When I got there, there was nothing like that,” he told Judge Stuard before his resentencing.

“They discouraged discussion of prior drug abuse problems,” Kirkpatrick said. “They looked at it as you accepted Christ as your savior. You had a new slate. That was it. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you nine times out of 10 when you don’t deal with a problem, it doesn’t just go away. It gets worse.”

Jeff Hoolihan, a Warren police detective, spoke at the hearing on behalf of the victims of Kirkpatrick’s burglaries and the 28 law enforcement agencies that investigated Kirkpatrick and 17 others involved in two Mahoning Valley burglary rings.

“We [The Violent Crimes Task Force] were very displeased with the sentencing you gave him,” Hoolihan told Judge Stuard of the hearing in September.

“Mr. Kirkpatrick has been incarcerated three times before and spent about 10 years in prison,” Hoolihan said. “If he’s not going to learn from this, Teen Challenge isn’t going to help him.”

He and Gina Buccino Arnaut, an assistant county prosecutor, asked that Kirkpatrick get the nine years in prison Judge Stuard promised.

Several defendants Judge Stuard sent to Life Challenge have completed the program successfully, but some have not, he said.

“Every one of those who came back [unsuccessfully] — I have given them what I have [promised],” Judge Stuard said.

runyan@vindy.com