Two men face aggravated burglary charges
By Kalea Hall
BOARDMAN
Boardman police arrested two Youngstown men over the weekend after an aggravated burglary occurred on Newton Avenue.
Gregory Urbanek Jr., 22, of Wychwood Lane is charged with aggravated burglary, a first-degree felony, and trafficking in drugs, a fifth-degree felony.
Steven Direnzo Jr., 19, of Falls Avenue also is charged in the aggravated burglary.
Both will be arraigned at 8:30 a.m. today in Mahoning County Area Court here.
Police responded to the aggravated burglary just after 12:30 a.m. Sunday. According to a police report, officers learned two unidentified males had entered a home in the 30 block of Newton Avenue and robbed a woman at gunpoint.
The victim told police she was sleeping on the couch when she heard a knock at the door. She opened the door and the males came in, one of them with a black handgun.
She told police the man with the gun said, “Where is the money? I know you have money here. I won’t hurt you if you give me the money.”
The woman was forced to the ground, and then she was struck in the back of the head while she screamed for help.
A $1,000 HP laptop computer, a digital camera worth $1,500 and an auto-focus lens were taken.
The victim’s son-in-law was sleeping upstairs and was alerted by his mother-in-law’s cry for help.
When he got downstairs, he saw the two suspects leaving the residence and went toward them. The suspect with the gun told him to get back in the house because he had a gun.
The son-in-law told police he believed both suspects fled toward Market Street.
Police searched for the suspects and found shoeprints leading from the house and followed them to Boardman Inn on Market Street.
Police said they found Urbanek and Direnzo inside a hotel room. Police asked the female renting the room if they could search it and she let them.
Police found a 9mm semiautomatic pistol with a loaded magazine, 12 suboxone patches and an unmarked bottle that appeared to contain suspected heroin.
A digital scale was also found along with marijuana, alprazolam pills and a glass drug pipe.
The items taken from the Newton Avenue home were also found, according to police reports. Police later learned the gun used in the crime also was reported stolen.
Prosecutors in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Monday filed a motion with Judge Maureen Sweeney to revoke Direnzo’s bond from a pending burglary charge in her court.