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Man gets 14 years for kidnapping, rapes
Photo
Anthony Carr
YOUNGSTOWN — A 50-year-old homeless man has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for raping or attempting to rape four women on four separate occasions.
The attacks took place in the vacant former Salvation Army building on Mahoning Avenue, which has been demolished.
Anthony M. Carr received the prison time Tuesday from Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court after he pleaded guilty Friday to five counts of kidnapping, four counts of rape and one count of attempted rape.
Natasha K. Frenchko, an assistant county prosecutor, had recommended a 17-year prison term, but that didn’t satisfy one of Carr’s victims.
“I don’t think 17 years is long enough for what he did. Nobody deserves to go through that,” the victim told Judge Evans before he imposed sentence. That victim said Carr kidnapped, raped and punched her.
Carr met the women, some of them strangers and some of them acquaintances, in downtown Youngstown and forced them into the vacant building, where he assaulted them in February 2005 and in May and June 2007, Frenchko said. “It was all crimes of convenience for him,” Frenchko added.
In the 2005 case, the woman escaped from the building after being tied to a shelf, police said.
In asking Judge Evans to impose a 10-year prison term on Carr, defense lawyer Thomas E. Zena asked the judge to take into account the fact that Carr could be imprisoned for up to nine extra years for a parole violation from unrelated previous convictions for aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary for which he had served prison time.
Judge Evans could have given Carr an 88-year prison term if he had imposed maximum, consecutive sentences for all the charges to which Carr had pleaded guilty.
In the plea deal, Frenchko agreed to drop one count each of felonious assault and attempted aggravated robbery.
Frenchko said she made the deal to spare the victims the ordeal of testifying in a trial.
The judge made the decision to sentence Carr to 14 years on all the crimes.
The long delay in completing the case stemmed from plea negotiations and a series of defense motions, including one to divide the charges into two trials, Frenchko said.
Carr, who apologized in court for his crimes, will get the required credit for the 954 days he already has been jailed.
After leaving prison, Carr will be on parole for five years and must register quarterly as a sex offender for life with the sheriff.
milliken@vindy.com