Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Staff report
WARREN
Charles M. Bland, 59, of 12th Street, Weathersfield Township, has been sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 10 years on four counts of rape and other sex offenses.
Bland was scheduled for trial Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court before Judge W. Wyatt McKay but accepted a plea agreement instead.
In addition to the rapes, which relate to girls who lived near him, Bland was convicted of two counts of gross sexual imposition and dozens of counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor.
The pandering charges accuse him of obtaining or producing child pornography, some of it involving the same children as in the rape counts, said Gabe Wildman, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor.
The pornography charges involve children as young as 5, said Wildman. The images show nude or seminude children, in some cases involved in sexual conduct.
Also sentenced Monday was Daron Warfield, 24, of Lane Drive Southwest.
Warfield received four years in prison after pleading guilty before Judge Peter Kontos to aggravated assault with a firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The charges stem from an incident at the BP gas station, 1290 E. Market St., near Laird Avenue Southeast, Oct. 6, 2012, in which he fired a gun at three people outside the station at 12:30 a.m.. Police recovered nine bullet casings.
Warfield was bound over on a murder charge early in 2012 in connection with the Jan. 12 killing of Domin’Que Hugley, 21, of Saratoga Avenue Southwest, but a grand jury refused to indict him.