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Etto pleads guilty to complicity in bat case
Photo
Charles Etto
By Elise Franco
YOUNGSTOWN
Charles Etto admitted his part in the confrontation that put his son in police custody and another teen in the hospital.
Etto, 40, of Austintown, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a reduced charge of complicity to aggravated assault.
His sentencing hearing before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court will be at 9 a.m. Feb. 1, and he remains on electronically monitored house arrest until then.
Etto originally was charged with felonious assault Oct. 14 for handing his 16-year-old son, Derek Etto, a baseball bat during a Sept. 27 fight outside the family’s South Edgehill Avenue residence.
Derek Etto is accused of hitting a 15-year-old classmate in the head with the bat — sending him to the hospital with severe injuries — and was charged as a juvenile with felonious assault.
His trial is scheduled for Dec. 15 in juvenile court.
Charles Etto’s assault charge put him in violation of his probation from previous drug- trafficking and child-endangering charges.
Becky Doherty, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor who prosecuted the assault case, recommended Etto be sentenced to probation on the assault charge.
“We’ve discussed, at length, the facts of this case,” she said. “Based on those facts, we recommend community control.”
Martin Desmond, the assistant county prosecutor who handled the probation-violation case, also recommended probation on the violation.
Judge Krichbaum said he will take the prosecutors’ recommendations under advisement but informed Etto that he could face between six and 18 months in jail on the assault charge and an additional 61/2 years on the probation violation.
“I told your lawyers that I won’t rule out honoring the recommendations, but I won’t make any promises,” Judge Krichbaum said. “Someone who commits a new felony while on probation is in big trouble. It’s a bad situation for you to be in.”
Dorherty said the prosecutor’s office agreed to probation because of how the Sept. 27 incident played out.
“This is not a situation where Mr. Etto went looking for trouble,” she said. “A group of teenagers came, literally, to his house to fight his son.”
Though the judge acknowledged that Etto likely was trying to protect his son, he said the situation was handled the wrong way.
“I’m certain if a group of young men came to this man’s house, it should cause some type of reaction. ... Though it was an inappropriate reaction,” Judge Krichbaum said.