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2 Youngstown men enter guilty pleas to robbing 83-year-old
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
On the fourth day of their jury trial, two 21-year-old men pleaded guilty as charged to aggravated robbery with a firearm specification in the snatching of a purse at gunpoint from an 83-year-old woman just after she left a cash-advance establishment.
Entering their pleas Thursday afternoon before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court were Damon L. Williams, of East Earle Avenue, and Johnathan Tellington, of Crescent Street, Struthers.
Williams and Tellington will remain on electronically monitored house arrest pending their sentencing at 10:30 a.m. July 23.
After robbing the elderly East Midlothian Boulevard woman of her purse containing $200 outside Ace Cash Advance on Youngstown-Poland Road last Oct. 16, the pair fled across that street into Struthers, said Rebecca Doherty, an assistant county prosecutor.
Youngstown police arrested the two men Oct. 28 after an investigation, during which the victim identified them as the robbers, Doherty said.
A witness said she saw two men walking back and forth on the Struthers side of the road across from the cash advance store for about three hours before she saw them rob the elderly woman.
Doherty said she would likely ask the judge to sentence Williams and Tellington in the high end of the six- to 13-year prison sentence range allowed by law. Doherty said Williams pointed a handgun in the victim’s face. Police never recovered the gun.
“Some things fell through that we needed in our defense. ... At the most critical time when we needed them, they weren’t available,” said Tellington’s lawyer, Ross Smith, explaining why his client opted to plead guilty. He declined to elaborate.
“There’s no place for this type of conduct in civilized society. ... Maximum sentencing should be applied based upon the heinous nature of the crime,” said Detective Sgt. Donald P. Scott of the Youngstown Police Department, who investigated the case.
“Struthers police provided the initial information leading to the identification of the perpetrators,” Scott added.