Chardon beating case to go before grand jury
By Elise Franco
Austintown
Felony kidnapping and assault charges against four men accused of beating a 19-year-old acquaintance were bound over to a Mahoning County grand jury.
Nathan Brewer, 20, of Austintown; James Castle, 20, of East Clarion; and Nicholas Nelson, 21, and Anthony Zingale, 20, both of Chardon were charged March 28 with kidnapping and felonious assault in the beating of the victim, also a Chardon man.
The four appeared Wednesday in Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown where each waived their right to a preliminary hearing. The cases now will be presented to a grand jury.
All are in the Mahoning County jail on $250,000 bond.
Assistant County Prosecutor Ken Cardinal said the bonds were set to keep the suspects out of an already grieving Chardon community. Three of the men and the victim were in Austintown on March 27 visiting Brewer, formerly of Chardon, at his Deer Creek Apartment to drink in memory of Danny Parmertor.
Parmertor was killed Feb. 27 during a shooting at Chardon High School. T.J. Lane, 17, of Chardon is charged in his death and the deaths of two others.
The four told Austintown police they were friends with Parmertor and celebrating his life.
Parmertor’s uncle, Ron Parmertor, told The Vindicator via email that the suspects weren’t friends with Danny and only knew him through his older brother, who previously had cut ties with the group.
“There was no relationship between Danny and these five men besides the fact they all knew” his brother, Ron Parmertor said.
According to a police report, the suspects put the victim in the shower in an attempt to sober him up after he became belligerent. Around the same time, about 11:40 p.m., Austintown police arrived at the apartment because of a noise complaint.
The victim stumbled out of the bathroom in a towel, and police asked them all to keep the noise down, according to the report.
Austintown Detective Sgt. Kathy Dina said after officers left, the disorder escalated.
The suspects told Dina they began to beat the victim to keep him quiet because he “wouldn’t shut up,” and they didn’t want the police to come back.
“One of the kids started getting upset and started beating him,” she said.
Dina said the men then dragged the victim out of the apartment and put him into their van. “They were going to head back to Chardon and planned to leave him on the side of the road,” she said.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol stopped the van just before 1 a.m. Thursday in Howland Township, Trumbull County, for driving without headlights. The victim was found inside the back of the van, beaten and bloody.
Cardinal said the suspects admitted during questioning that they knew the victim only by his first name.
“They beat, half-to-death, someone whose full name they didn’t even know,” Cardinal said. “They knew his first name and cellphone number because he was their drinking buddy.”
Cardinal said the violent actions were senseless and did nothing but harm another member of an already wounded Chardon community.
He said he’s glad the group didn’t make it back to Chardon, where they told police they had intended to dump the victim on the roadside.
“These kids didn’t do Chardon any good by drinking in celebration of someone they thought they knew,” he said. “That community didn’t need to wake up in the morning and find that boy there after the tragedy they just went through.”