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Inmate granted judicial release
YOUNGSTOWN
A man previously sentenced to prison for trying to abduct a 14-year-old girl from a busy Boardman Township road will be released on probation but ordered to have no contact with his victim.
Guy Krupa, 51, of Oregon Trail, Boardman, appeared Monday before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for a judicial-release hearing. Judge Krichbaum ultimately granted the two-year judicial release, formerly called shock probation, but told Krupa he can have no contact with the victim in the case.
Judge Krichbaum presided over a trial in 2009 in which Krupa was convicted of attempted abduction by a jury of seven men and five women. Judge Krichbaum sentenced Krupa to 12 months in prison with credit for the 32 days he already had spent in the county jail. Krupa was facing a maximum of 18 months in prison.
After serving 24 days in state prison in 2009, Krupa was released because the 7th District Court of Appeals stayed the sentence pending Krupa’s appeal.
That appeals court later upheld Krupa’s conviction, and the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Krupa reported to the county jail May 18 to be returned to state prison to continue serving the sentence Judge Krichbaum imposed.
Judge Krichbaum ruled that only the days Krupa served in state prison, not the time he spent in county jail awaiting transportation to state prison, would count toward the minimum of 30 days in state prison Krupa would need to serve before being eligible to apply for judicial release.
On the afternoon of April 13, 2009, a 14-year-old girl was walking along Southern Boulevard to meet a friend. As the girl approached Leighton Avenue, a man, later identified as Krupa, driving a tan sport-utility vehicle, stopped at a stop sign on Leighton at Southern and offered the girl a ride.
The girl refused, but prosecutors and police say Krupa persisted, scaring the girl and drawing the attention of a woman passing by. Gabriel Wildman, a former assistant county prosecutor, during the trial said Krupa told the girl to “get in the [expletive] car.”
Krupa, who said he was trying to help the girl, apologized to the court at the time of his initial sentencing and said he wished he had minded his own business and not offered the girl a ride. He emphasized that he had no intention to abduct her.