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Judge issues sentences in Trumbull County
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Joseph A. Queen, 24, of Warren and Bristolville, has been sentenced to four years in prison for the Jan. 30 robbery of the First Place Bank, 185 E. Market Street.
Queen pleaded guilty to robbery Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. He waived having a pre-sentence report of his criminal history prepared by the Trumbull County Adult Probation Department, so Judge Kontos was able to sentence Queen the same day.
Police said Queen walked into the bank at 10:50 a.m. and robbed a teller of the cash in her drawer by handing her a note demanding money. He did not show a weapon but mentioned one, police said.
Queen turned himself in to police later that day.
Also Monday, Michael J. Ellenis, 22, of Woodledge Drive, Austintown, was sentenced to three years in prison for walking up to Handel’s Ice Cream, 5140 Youngstown Road in Niles on July 3, 2011, showing a handgun and demanding money.
Chris Becker, assistant county prosecutor, said Ellenis passed a lie-detector test that indicated the gun he was using was a BB gun. Ellenis said he disposed of the weapon after the robbery. The weapon was never recovered.
Niles police said there were eight to 10 customers nearby at the time of the robbery.
Judge Kontos also ruled Monday that Megan R. Porter, 32, of 35 Trumbull Court in Liberty, is not competent to stand trial on a charge of corrupting another with drugs and will be sent to Heartland Behavioral Healthcare, a state psychiatric hospital in Massillon.
Liberty police arrested Porter on Sept. 24, 2011, after a 16-year-old Scott Lane, Girard, boy told police that Porter, who was pregnant at the time, walked up to him on Marla Drive in the Vintage Village Mobile Home Park north of Tibbetts-Wick Road and told him she had a pill for him to take.
The boy pretended to take the pill but instead kept it in his hand and later turned it over to police, who determined it to be an anxiety medication.
When police questioned Porter later, Porter said she had been watching the boy play football with other boys and she gave the boy the pill hoping that it would “calm him down so I could have sex with him.”
Porter said she believed the boy was about 16 or 17 years old.
Porter could get up to eight years in prison if she’s eventually convicted.