Man pleads guilty in assault

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A 23-year-old South Meridian Road man pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and endangering children for striking his pregnant girlfriend with his fists, during which he accidentally struck her 1-year-old daughter, who was in her arms.

Ralph Stoddard entered his plea Monday before Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who will sentence him at 11 a.m. Jan. 9.

The prosecutor amended a domestic-violence charge to aggravated assault in a plea deal that was reached just as Stoddard’s jury trial was scheduled to begin.

The deal gives Stoddard, who has no prior criminal record, a chance to avoid the mandatory minimum six-month prison term for domestic violence against a woman he purportedly knew to be pregnant and for him to be eligible for a possible probation.

The assault occurred June 16, 2013, in a car near the Interstate 680 and Meridian Road interchange.

The victim left the car Stoddard was driving with her baby after the assault and was taken from state Route 711 near Gypsy Lane to her Sharon, Pa., residence by a concerned citizen, according to Kevin Trapp, an assistant county prosecutor.

The woman suffered facial injuries, but the baby was not hurt.

Stoddard remains free on bond pending sentencing.