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Life term in prison for rape to be reduced
By Peter Milliken
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who received a life prison term for the rape of two young boys is now facing three to 18 years in prison.
Michael Kaufman, 42, of Berkshire Drive, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of felonious assault and one count of rape.
If Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court adopts the six-year prison term agreed to by the prosecution and defense when he sentences Kaufman at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 2, the prison term will be nonappealable.
Kaufman entered his plea before the judge after Natasha Frenchko, an assistant county prosecutor, reduced a rape charge pertaining to one of the boys to felonious assault and removed a life-sentence specification from a rape charge pertaining to the second boy.
Without objection from Frenchko, Judge Krichbaum allowed Kaufman to remain free on $300,000 bond pending sentencing.
Judge Krichbaum had sentenced Kaufman to life in prison after a jury convicted Kaufman of raping the boys in a March 2008 trial.
The 7th District Court of Appeals then ordered new and separate trials, one pertaining to each victim, saying joining the offenses against both victims in the same trial was prejudicial to Kaufman.
The county prosecutor’s office appealed that decision to the Ohio Supreme Court, which left intact the appellate-court decision by refusing to review the case.
Police said the crimes occurred in Mahoning County between 1995 and 2003, and that the victims were male relatives of Kaufman’s between age 8 and 11.
Frenchko said she made the plea agreement because of “evidentiary issues that have surfaced.”
The family of one boy was reluctant to have him testify in the 2008 trial and likely would be reluctant to have him testify again, Frenchko said.
Before the 2008 trial, Kaufman had rejected the prosecution’s offer to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecution’s recommendation of a six-year prison term, Frenchko said.