Charged with 2 kidnap counts

The victims said the man forced them to drive around Youngstown.

Staff report

AUSTINTOWN — A Youngstown man has been charged in the abductions of two people in the township.

Youngstown police arrested James G. Williams, 35, of Youngstown, on Thursday evening in the abduction of a 45-year-old Vienna man. Williams was taken to Mahoning County jail.

Austintown Detective Doug Scharsu said Williams was charged with one count of kidnapping by Youngstown police and one count of kidnapping by Austintown police in an earlier incident.

The male victim told Youngstown police he was putting gas in his car at the Speedway on North Meridian Road when he saw a man, later identified as Williams, sitting in his front passenger seat.

The victim said Williams threatened to shoot him. For the next 71‚Ñ2 hours, the victim was forced to drive around Youngstown, Austintown and Salem so that Williams could buy and smoke crack cocaine, according to a Youngstown police report.

The victim told police he was able to escape and call authorities when Williams got out of the car to urinate near Sunny Bright Laundromat on Mahoning Avenue.

Youngstown police apprehended Williams outside the coin- operated laundry around 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

The charge from Austintown police was the result of the abduction of a 50-year-old Youngstown woman who told police Thursday that she was turning around in the BP parking lot, 3602 Mahoning, about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when a man stepped in front of her car and wouldn’t let her pass by.

She said the man opened the passenger door, got into the car and told her he had a gun before ordering her to drive him through Youngstown.

She told police he made her drive through the city for several hours while he drank beer from cans, which he discarded throughout the city’s South side.

The woman said he smoked cigarettes as well as what she suspected to be crack cocaine from a glass pipe.

She gave her abductor $23 to keep him calm throughout the drive, according to the police report, and he eventually told her to drive to a South Avenue bar, where he got out of the car and fled.

While township detectives were interviewing the female victim Thursday, the Youngstown Police Department called and said they’d apprehended Williams in the incident at Speedway.

The female victim was taken to the laundry business and identified Williams as her abductor, police said.