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Man pleads guilty in beating of toddler
The available prison-sentence range is two to eight years.
YOUNGSTOWN — A 19-year-old Campbell man has pleaded guilty to felonious assault in the brutal beating of a 16-month-old South Side boy July 17.
Jerbrail Grhim, of Monroe Street, entered his plea Thursday morning before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
The East Lucius Avenue boy, who was taken to Akron Children’s Hospital, was assaulted with a wire coat hanger, punched several times and held underwater in a bathtub, police reports said.
Grhim, who is not related to the child, met the child’s mother about a week before the beating, according to a family friend.
Natasha K. Frenchko, an assistant county prosecutor, asked Judge Krichbaum to impose a four-year prison term on Grhim when he is sentenced at 10 a.m. Dec. 2. Grhim could go to prison for two to eight years with three years’ parole afterward.
Frenchko said she won’t object to judicial release for Grhim after he serves two years as long as he behaves well in prison, participates in prison programming and obtains his GED.
After court, Frenchko declined to discuss her reasons for making the plea agreement.
Grhim was arrested about a week after the beating at a house on Coitsville Road shortly after fleeing on foot from a routine Campbell police traffic stop.
The boy’s mother left him and her two other sons, age 6 and 2, in her boyfriend’s care while she took a relative to a court hearing, a police report said. Three other children, age 13, 10 and 8, also were at the home, but the report didn’t state their relationship to the family.
The baby’s grandmother, who lives across the street, went to the home to get her grandchildren and told police it took a long time for the boyfriend to answer the door.
When he finally came to the door, she went to find the toddler, and the boyfriend threw a towel over him to conceal him, the report said.
When she removed the towel, she saw bruises on the toddler’s head, face, rear and sides, she said. She picked up the child and left the house with her daughter’s boyfriend following and telling her the boy didn’t need to go to the hospital, the grandmother said.
Grhim has another case pending before Judge Krichbaum in which he and two other men are charged with conspiracy to commit felonious assault with a firearm specification. The indictment says the three men attempted to cause physical harm to another man June 23.