Man to be sentenced for assault

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A 31-year-old Plazaview Court man will be sentenced at 2 p.m. Jan. 26 after a jury convicted him earlier this week of one count of felonious assault and three counts of kidnapping in a June 20 assault on his 31-year-old girlfriend.

The defendant, Richard Wright, faces three to 38 years in prison when Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentences him.

Wright became angry after the woman received a telephone call from a man she used to date. Wright then drove the woman from her home to a wooded area on the city’s East Side, discharged a handgun directly past her face and returned her to her residence, said Natasha Frenchko, an assistant county prosecutor.

Wright also put the handgun in the victim’s mouth, Frenchko said.

“He attempted to cause her physical harm with a deadly weapon,” Frenchko said, explaining the felonious-assault charge. The victim was not injured.