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Landlord confronts intruder
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Bill Kruppa, who waged a successful battle to get a fellow candidate for Warren City Council off the ballot in the spring, waged a different sort of battle early Monday at a house he owns on Atlantic Street Northeast.
Kruppa, 44, of Perkinswood Boulevard Southeast, was alerted to a break-in at his rental property at 407 Atlantic about 3:15 a.m. and went there with his wife to check it out.
Once there, he walked inside the first floor and called out “landlord, landlord” but got no response, according to a Warren police report.
Next he went to the basement, where Kruppa, who was armed with a handgun, confronted Christopher L. Scott, 22, of Ohio Avenue Northwest, ordering him to get on the ground.
Scott initially did so, but moments later he said he was “not going back to jail,” jumped up, grabbed a set of bolt cutters and swung them at Kruppa, striking Kruppa on the side of the face.
When Kruppa backed away, his arm struck something, causing his gun to go off, he said. No one was hit by the gunfire. The two men wrestled for the gun, causing Kruppa to step in a hole in the basement floor, turning his ankle.
Scott began to flee up the stairs, but an officer with the Warren Police Department had arrived by then and took Scott into custody.
Officers determined that Scott had broken into the house by breaking a window.
Officers noticed a woman crouching beside a vehicle when they arrived and later learned it was Kruppa’s wife, who had called 911.
Kruppa was treated at St. Joseph Health Center for facial cuts and an ankle injury.
He could not be reached to comment Tuesday.
Scott was arraigned in Warren Municipal Court Tuesday, pleading innocent to felonious assault and breaking and entering. He is being held in the Trumbull County Jail without eligibility to make bond.
If convicted, Scott could get nine years in prison.
Last March, when Kruppa was running for an at-large seat on Warren City Council, he lodged a complaint with the Trumbull County Board of Elections against fellow Democratic candidate Ken MacPherson, arguing that MacPherson did not meet the residency requirements.
The board of elections agreed with Kruppa after a hearing at which Kruppa testified, and the Ohio 11th District Court of Appeals affirmed the elections board’s decision.
Kruppa finished fourth in the race for three seats, being beaten by James Valesky Jr. by 19 votes (2,411 to 2,391) for the final seat.
Scott was sentenced to three years in prison in July 2007 after pleading guilty in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to aggravated burglary.
He was released from prison in May 2010.