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Assailant in beating with bat sentenced with a bat
Warren teen pleads guilty, gets 2 years
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Johntee Daniel, 17, the Warren youth who hit 15-year-old Verdarell Lowery in the head with a baseball bat July 21, causing a brain injury, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of felonious assault. He was sentenced to two years in the custody of the Ohio Department of Youth Services.
The assault was recorded on video from a camera phone, and authorities later recovered the footage. It showed a person hitting Lowery from behind with a bat in a powerful blow to the top and back of his head.
The assault was part of a large fight at Brier Street and Duke Avenue Southeast that was prompted, police said, by an ongoing feud.
Lowery was taken to Akron Children’s Hospital after the assault, where he was in critical condition.
His mother, Kim Lowery, said Monday after the hearing that her son’s vital signs “flat-lined” not long after the assault, “and all it’s worth is two years.”
Lowery is not back in school because he was expelled last school year, but he’s “doing fine,” his mother said. Verdarell requires daily medication, she said.
“My son will never be normal. He’ll be mental the rest of his life without medicine,” she said. “I don’t want to complain too much because he’s alive.”
Daniel, who was 16 at the time of the assault, gets credit for the four months he has served in the Trumbull County Juvenile Justice Center, said Stanley Elkins, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor.
He could have been bound over to Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to face adult charges, Elkins said, but the plea agreement Daniel and his attorney, Samuel Bluedorn, reached prevented that from happening.
The sentencing was conducted by Monte Horton, magistrate of Trumbull County Juvenile Court.
Horton said “probably the only thing” that prevented Daniel from being charged as an adult was that he had never been charged previously in juvenile court.
“I think basically you’ve learned a very valuable lesson here. Your actions in a split second can affect not only your life but the lives of a lot of other people,” Horton said.
The maximum sentence for the two crimes was juvenile incarceration until Daniel turned 21. The sentence in adult court would have been up to eight years in adult prison on each count.
Johntee Daniel had multiple charges because there were three victims, Elkins said. The first assault, which was also visible on the tape, is Johntee Daniel hitting a youth with his fist. The bat assault on Lowery was second, and another assault with the bat was third, Elkins said.
The second assault with the bat was not on tape, Elkins said, adding that he doesn’t know the extent of the injuries suffered in that assault.
In exchange for his guilty plea, a misdemeanor assault charge, relating to the punch, was dismissed, Elkins said.
Anther defendant, Shawndon Flowers, 15, pleaded guilty Nov. 10 to misdemeanor assault, was sentenced to 90 days in the Trumbull County Juvenile Justice Center, which he had already served, and was released. He is alleged to have handed the bat to Johntee Daniel, Elkins said.
Shawndon Flowers will be on probation for at least 90 days but could remain on probation up to age 21, depending on his conduct, Elkins said.
The third defendant, Johntee Daniel’s brother, Jovan Daniel, 15, is still in juvenile custody and is set for trial Dec. 22 on a felonious assault charge. He is accused of stomping on Lowery’s chest with his feet.