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Warren men charged in another area ATM robbery, kidnapping
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Five days after a 20-year-old Warren man was sentenced to 39 years in prison for kidnapping a Warren woman and her son so he could get money from their ATM, a similar crime was committed in Howland.
On Friday, Juan D. Jordan, 23, of Union Street Southwest, was arraigned in Warren Municipal Court on charges of kidnapping and aggravated robbery, accused of being one of two men who kidnapped a soldier at gunpoint as he drove home Jan. 20, assaulting him and taking him to several automated teller machines for money.
His purported accomplice, Daniel D. Boone Jr., 24, who listed addresses on Risher Road in Leavittsburg and Tyrell Road North in Vienna, was arraigned on the same charges Wednesday.
Both are in the Trumbull County Jail on $1 million bond. If convicted, each man could get more than 20 years in prison. They both return to court at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
The soldier eventually escaped near the Huntington Bank ATM on Main Avenue Southwest in Warren and fled to the nearby Burger King restaurant for help — about two hours after he was kidnapped.
During his captivity, the gunmen forced him to take off his clothes so they could look through his clothing, repeatedly punched him in his sides, head and neck and forced him to keep his head below the dashboard.
The soldier, who is stationed in Farrell, Pa., said he was returning home from Virginia about 6 p.m. when he saw one white male and one black male, both in their mid- to late 20s, flagging him down from the side of the road at the corner of North Road and Adrian Drive in Howland.
He rolled down his window, and the men pulled him from the car at gunpoint and ordered him into the front-passenger seat.
They took his property, including a cellphone and credit cards, and drove him to a gas station where they made him withdraw $120 from one bank card.
They went to Chase Bank in front of Eastwood Mall and withdrew $400 from that account after getting the PIN number from the victim. They drove him around Warren after that, hitting him and threatening to kill him, the man told police.
They stopped at the Huntington Bank ATM on Main Avenue in Warren, got the PIN number from the victim and then started arguing about the ATM, the victim said.
That allowed the victim to jump out and get free, running to the Burger King for help. He had some red marks on his neck but declined medical attention.
The victim’s 2005 Nissan Murano was found two days later by an officer with the Niles Police Department at the BP gas station at 5373 Youngstown Road.
On Jan. 15, Taylor Ervin-Williams, 20, of Belmont Street Northwest in Warren was sentenced to 41 years in prison for breaking into a Charles Street Southeast Warren home in February 2013, entering a room where a woman and her son were asleep and robbing the woman at gunpoint of $40 cash, then kidnapping both of them.
He ordered the woman to drive her car to an ATM in the parking lot behind the Hot Dog Shoppe on West Market Street in Warren, walk to the machine and withdraw $300 from her account.
When the woman returned to car, she gave Ervin-Williams the money, then ran, signaling her son to do the same. They got away and called 911.
Police found the woman’s car being driven near her home a short time later, followed it at high speeds, then found Ervin-Williams in the upstairs apartment in the home where he lived after the driver bailed out nearby.
Ervin Williams was convicted on all counts during a trial that started Jan. 6 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. On Jan. 23, his sentence was reduced to 39 years because of a sentencing error.
Niles police investigated a similar crime involving a female student returning to her car in the parking lot of the Great East Plaza in October.
That victim reported that a white male approached her with a handgun and hooded sweatshirt around his face and demanded money, then forced her to drive to the ATM in front of Eastwood Mall, where she withdrew $40 and gave it to him.
He ordered her to drive to a nearby restaurant, where he got out of the car and fled.