43
Woman gets 6-year term for robbing 84-year-old
YOUNGSTOWN
A 38-year-old woman who robbed her 84-year-old neighbor of $1,000 after hitting him on his head and left hand with his wooden cane has been sentenced to six years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Belinda Kennedy, formerly of Flo-Lor Drive, who earlier had pleaded guilty to robbery, drew the sentence Friday from Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Robert J. Andrews, an assistant county prosecutor, urged the judge to impose prison time because of the nature of the offense, the age of the victim and the prior relation-ship of trust between Kennedy and the victim, James McBride. Andrews, however, did not recommend a specific amount of prison time.
“She had come to him several times for help, for money, and he had always done things for her,” Andrews noted.
In its pre-sentence investigation, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority recommended an eight-year prison term. The prison sentencing range available to the judge was two to eight years.
Kennedy’s lawyer, Michael Gollings, said after court he had hoped to keep her prison term within the three- to four-year range.
“Belinda suffers from a lot of different problems” including psychological and substance-abuse issues, Gollings said of his client, who sat tearfully at the defense table after her sentencing.
Kennedy went to McBride’s Canfield Road apartment about 3 a.m. June 25 and asked him for money, at which time he gave her $30, McBride told police.
She knocked again at his apartment door 90 minutes later, asking to use the bathroom, and he admitted her, McBride told police. After she emerged from the bathroom, he refused her request for an additional $50, he told police.
She became irate, grabbed the cane from a table and hit McBride with it, before grabbing a cloth bag containing the money and fleeing, McBride told police.
Kennedy was arrested July 6 on Pointview Avenue by the Mahoning Valley Violent Crimes Task Force.
McBride did not appear in person at the sentencing, but Andrews read a written statement from him in court.
McBride’s statement took the form of a letter to Kennedy, in which he wrote: “I never refused anyone who needed help or advice, but yet, somehow, you decided to do harm to me, and only you would know the reason why.”
Kennedy apologized for her actions.
In her statement to the judge, she mentioned that she is the mother of Jessica Ballew, the 3-year-old shot to death by Sidney Cornwell on June 11, 1996.
Cornwell and others had driven to an Oak Park Lane apartment, intending to shoot a rival in retaliation for an earlier incident between neighborhood gangs.
After learning that the intended victim was not home, Cornwell opened fire, killing Jessica and injuring three adults.
Cornwell is to be executed for the murder Nov. 16.