East Palestine man sentenced in stabbing

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

An East Palestine man who pleaded guilty to stabbing or cutting four people in a Feb. 21 fight outside a Petersburg bar has been sentenced to two years in prison and three years of parole after prison.

Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the sentence for felonious assault Thursday on Ryan Powell, 26, of Garfield Avenue, in the incident outside the Petersburg Country Club on Youngstown-Pittsburgh Road in New Springfield.

A woman and her boyfriend, both 25, and both of New Springfield, asked a man standing by her van to move.

The man, later identified as Powell, stabbed the woman in her neck, cutting her boyfriend on his hand as he went to protect her.

A 29-year-old New Springfield man who also tried to protect the woman was stabbed in his neck and cut above his eye, police said. A 29-year-old East Palestine man was cut on his hand as he wrested the knife away.

The three injured men refused medical treatment, and the woman was treated and released at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown.