Hubbard man sentenced to 18 months for crimes involving military statue

August 20, 2013 at 2:33p.m.

WARREN

One of the two Hubbard-Masury area men accused of cutting up a bronze military statue from the Mahoning Valley Memorial Park in Youngstown in March and trying to sell it for scrap was sentenced Tuesday.

Richard R. Couturiaux, 31, of Hubbard, received an 18-month prison sentence on felony charges of receiving stolen property and vandalism and two counts of misdemeanor desecration.

Police said Couturiaux scrapped portions of the statue for $25.50 at the Girard Recycling Center. Brookfield police arrested Couturiaux April 1 on a warrant while at the home of the other man charged in the case, Michael A. Cryster, 26, of West Ohio Street in Masury. Brookfield police recovered a grave marker taken from the cemetery from a garage at Cryster’s home.

Couturiaux, who has a lengthy criminal record involving trespassing, burglary and receiving stolen property dating back to 2000, also received an eight-month prison sentence in June on charges of breaking and entering, possessing criminal tools and receiving stolen property. That sentence stemmed from a May 2012 home burglary on Seifert Road in Hubbard Township.

Before Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday, Couturiaux apologized for the statue and grave marker crimes and blamed his drug problem for his actions.

But David Luther of American Legion Post 700 in Howland, in prepared remarks he delivered during the sentencing, called Couturiaux “ungrateful, selfish and cowardly.”