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Hubbard man sentenced to 18 months for vandalizing military statue, grave marker
Photo
Couturiaux
By Ed Runyan
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 on 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, chaplain of American Legion Post 700 in Howland, in prepared remarks he delivered during the sentencing, called Couturiaux “ungrateful, selfish and cowardly.”
He said Couturiaux “represents the cancer that is eating away at the very heart and soul of the United States of America, wanting to satisfy its own cravings at the cost of everything we hold sacred.”
Luther described the four-foot statue Couturiaux and Cryster purportedly destroyed as “standing watch” over 8 1/2 acres of the cemetery reserved for military veterans.
A large brass plaque was part of the statue, and it was entitled “Old Glory” with words underneath describing “the love for our flag and the ones called upon to defend it.”
Luther added, “We represent all moms and dads who ever greeted their son or daughter at an airport in a flag-draped casket.”
Luther also called on the Ohio Legislature to make desecration a more serious crime than a second-degree misdemeanor.
Couturiaux was convicted of the misdemeanor desecration but also felony vandalism, which relates to causing physical harm to any tomb, monument, gravestone or similar structure valued at between $7,500 and $150,000.
In this case, the statue was valued at $36,000.
Cryster is charged with the same offenses as Couturiaux, but he eluded capture by police for several months and had his first hearing Monday after being taken into custody recently.
Gary Pollock, overseer at the Mahoning Valley Memorial Park, said the cemetery marker that was taken was placed back on its grave site two weeks ago, and a veteran from Mogadore has started to repair the statue, which was in about nine pieces when it was returned.
Cost and a timetable for completion of the repairs are not known, Pollock said.