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Judge to probation violator: ‘I despise you’
Photo
Charles Etto
By Elise Franco
YOUNGSTOWN
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum is no longer sympathetic toward an Austintown man who violated his probation for a second time — sentencing him to 41/2 years in prison.
“I despise you,” the judge told Charles Etto in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Thursday.
The occasion was a revocation hearing after the court found probable cause that Etto violated probation for failing to report immediately back to the Mahoning County jail upon the cancellation of a mandatory doctor’s appointment. Upon his return, Etto tested positive for opiates and had tobacco on him.
Judge Krichbaum had granted Etto’s motion for the furlough so that he could attend a medical exam Feb. 17 through the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
Becky Doherty, assistant county prosecutor, on Thursday recommended a sentence of three years in a state prison on drug-trafficking and child-endangering charges and 18 months on an aggravated-assault charge.
The judge, who said he felt compassion for Etto before the most recent violation, imposed the recommendation. The 33 days Etto has already spent in county jail will be credited as time served.
“[Etto] had a debilitating medical condition, which is why the state recommended probation,” he said. “And I fell for that.”
Though Etto expressed regret and apologized for his indiscretion during the hearing, Judge Krichbaum was less than forgiving.
“I was reaching out to this guy, and he spit in my face,” the judge said. “There’s nothing you can do or say to make me feel sorry for you again.”
Etto had been sentenced Feb. 8 to five years’ probation for handing his son Derek Etto, 16, the bat used to beat another teen in September 2010.
Judge Krichbaum on Feb. 8 also sentenced Etto to 60 days in county jail at that time because the new charge violated a previous probation that stemmed from drug-trafficking and child-endangering charges.
Atty. James Vitullo asked the judge to take into consideration that Etto became dependent on prescription drugs after an industrial accident in 2006 left him with three crushed vertebrae in his neck.
“His detour to his home that day was fueled by this addiction to these drugs, an addiction he never had until that accident,” Vitullo said. “Spare him the penitentiary, and instead add time to his current sentence in the justice center.”