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Mahoning prosecutor seeks top court stay on pizza robbery prisoner
YOUNGSTOWN
An assistant Mahoning County prosecutor is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to urgently stay a 7th District Court of Appeals decision to dismiss charges against a defendant in a pizza shop robbery case, while the assistant prosecutor appeals the decision to the top court.
If a stay isn’t granted, the robbery suspect, Jeffrey Shorter, 45, of Orange Avenue, will immediately be released from the Mansfield Correctional Institution, said Ralph Rivera, the assistant prosecutor.
That’s because Shorter already has finished serving his three-year prison term for a drugstore robbery, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s Bureau of Sentence Computation, Rivera explained.
An ODRC spokeswoman confirmed Rivera’s statements concerning ODRC, but said Shorter’s release will require a written court order.
The top court gave Shorter’s lawyer, Jan R. Mostov, a noon deadline today to file a response to Rivera’s motion for a stay.
A three-judge panel of the appellate court unanimously reversed Shorter’s conviction in the Dec. 27, 2009, armed robbery of Belleria Pizza on Wick Avenue, saying the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict against him.
The 7th District panel said there was no evidence Shorter drove the getaway car used in the robbery and dismissed the charges against him in the pizza-shop robbery, for which he was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Shorter was the passenger in the car driven by Stanley Croom, when a police officer stopped it on McGuffey Road at least 48 minutes after the robbery, the appeals court noted.
Rivera said his appeal was based in part on Shorter’s DNA having been found on gloves police recovered from Croom’s vehicle.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court unanimously upheld the aggravated robbery and attempted aggravated murder convictions of Croom, who was identified by a Belleria employee as the robber.
Croom, 48, formerly of Plazaview Court, is serving 30 years at the Lorain Correctional Institution on charges stemming from the pizza-shop robbery.