Robbery suspect in jail on other charges

By Ed Runyan | January 13, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

WARREN

A Goshen Township man charged with aggravated robbery after a Dec. 9 purse snatching at Pat Catan’s on Ridge Road is serving a 172-day sentence in the Mahoning County jail on other charges.

On Dec. 21, Judge David D’Apolito of Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown sentenced Eric Uphold, 41, of Goshen Road, to 172 days in jail after Uphold pleaded guilty to reduced charges of misdemeanor assault and petty theft.

Those charges stemmed from the Dec. 8 purse-snatching Uphold committed on Ellsworth Road in Lake Milton.

Milton Township police said Uphold asked to borrow a 38-year-old woman’s cellphone because he was having car trouble, then asked to use a gas can.

While the woman was walking to the barn to get the gas can, Uphold took her purse from her car and drove off, Lake Milton police said.

On Tuesday, Mahoning County officials brought Uphold to Warren Municipal Court, where he pleaded innocent to aggravated robbery related to the Pat Catan’s robbery. He returns to Warren Municipal Court Thursday.

In the Warren robbery, police said Uphold injured an elderly Newton Falls man and woman and took the woman’s purse after asking for directions in the store parking lot.

While talking to the woman, Uphold reached outside of the blue minivan he was driving, grabbed the woman’s purse, then drove off, dragging the woman and sideswiping her husband, according to police reports.

Milton Township police arrested Uphold on Dec. 13 as he was driving through Lake Milton. Lt. Jeffrey Lewis spotted the blue minivan used in both purse snatchings and noticed its driver matched the description victims in both crimes had given.

Uphold wore dark-framed glasses and weighs well over 300 pounds, Lewis said. After taking Uphold into custody, the victims in Milton Township and Warren identified Uphold as the man who robbed them.

Uphold also was sentenced in Columbiana County on May 27, 2009, to six months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $5,969 to 4-Wheel Drive Hardware of Columbiana for committing a theft there in 2008.