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Robber sentenced to nine years in jail
YOUNGSTOWN
A city man with a drug addiction who stole repeatedly from North Side residents to support his habit will spend the next nine years in prison.
Walter Kornegay, 25, appeared before two Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judges on Thursday for sentencing. The combined sentences handed down by Judges John Durkin and James Evans will take Kornegay off the street for nearly a decade.
Kornegay, accompanied by his attorney Michael Kivlighan, appeared first before Judge Durkin. In a plea agreement with the state in 2011, Kornegay pleaded guilty to charges of robbery and receiving stolen property.
Meghan Brundege, an assistant county prosecutor, said the state, as part of the agreement, agreed to stand silent on any recommendation of jail time.
The charges stem from an incident at the Redemption House, a group home on Redondo Drive on the city’s North Side, in March.
A caretaker and several juveniles at the home were leaving for ice cream when they noticed a man walking back and forth along Redondo. When the group returned to the home, they saw someone moving in the house.
Police said the caretaker asked who was inside, and the man, later identified as Kornegay, said, “It’s just me.” The caretaker told police Kornegay told him he entered the home through a window because the lights were on, but no one would come to the door. He wanted to make sure everyone was OK, he said.
Reports say the caretaker threatened to call police, but Kornegay put his hand in his jacket as if to retrieve a weapon then said he had a gun and demanded the caretaker’s cellphone. The caretaker refused to hand over the phone, put all the juveniles back in the car, drove off and called police.
Kornegay was gone when officers arrived and so was the large, flat-screen TV inside the home. Kornegay was identified via video surveillance inside the home.
Kornegay, before sentencing in Judge Durkin’s court, apologized for his crime and asked the judge if he could be sentenced to a facility that could treat him for his addiction to crack cocaine and heroin.
“I know it was wrong, and I have to be punished for my crime,” he said. “I don’t want people to look at me like I am a bad person, but I was out there messing with drugs. ... I want to change my life.”
Judge Durkin handed down a combined five-year sentence on the charges and told Kornegay he would have to work to remain free of drugs.
“You will have to address the demons that have been with you so far,” the judge said. “You have caused a lot of people trauma in their lives.”
Later Thursday, Kornegay, with attorneys Paul Conn and Kivlighan, was in front of Judge Evans answering to probation-violation charges. He had been on probation to Judge Evans for previous thefts when the Redemption House incident took place.
Police say Kornegay stole an air compressor from the unlocked garage of a man for whom he had done yard work the previous fall in the 400 block of Bradley Avenue. That theft was followed by a burglary in the 2300 block of Selma Avenue the next day. He was also linked to a burglary on Gypsy Lane.
Kornegay was on probation for those series of crimes on the North Side.
Judge Evans handed down an additional four-year sentence to be served consecutive to the sentence handed down by Judge Durkin.