METRO DIGEST || Remembering Teddy Foltz

Remembering Teddy Foltz

STRUTHERS

A balloon release in memory of Teddy Foltz will take place Jan. 26. The event will mark the one-year anniversary of the 14-year-old’s death. The event begins at 2:30 p.m. and will be at 28 Creed St., the former home of Teddy’s mother, Shain Widdersheim.

Both Widdersheim and Zaryl Bush, her ex-boyfriend, pleaded guilty for their roles in Teddy’s death.

Bland found guilty

YOUNGSTOWN

A jury on Thursday found Michael Bland, 22, of Youngstown, guilty of a charge of discharging a firearm into a habitation for a shooting at a home in the 1300 block of Wick Avenue last Feb. 13.

He will be sentenced at 9 a.m. Tuesday by Judge John M. Durkin in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Jurors found Bland not guilty of the charges of aggravated burglary and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Bland was accused of trying to break into the home and when he could not get in, he retreated and fired at least two rounds at the home.

Jurors were seated Tuesday, heard testimony Wednesday and closing arguments Thursday before rendering their verdicts just before noon.

Gerberry to run

AuSTINTOWN

State Rep. Ronald V. Gerberry, D-59th, will file nominating petitions today to run for re-election for his last two-year term.

Gerberry, of Austintown, served in the Ohio House from 1982 to 2001 and then served as Mahoning County recorder from 2001 until he resigned in April 2007 to return to the state House to finish the unexpired term of then-state Rep. Kenneth A. Carano.

Gerberry was elected to a two-year term in 2008, and re-elected in 2010 and 2012. If re-elected this year, Gerberry couldn’t run in 2016 as the state’s term-limit law, approved in 1992, doesn’t permit him to run for a fifth-consecutive two-year term.

Man, 19, to be arraigned today

NILES

Alexander Howe, 19, of Robbins Avenue, will be arraigned this morning in Niles Municipal Court on an aggravated-burglary charge in the Dec. 30 home-invasion burglary and assault of a 65-year-old woman.

Police arrested Howe on Thursday afternoon after an investigation. Police said Howe broke into the back door of a home on North Butler Street at 5 a.m. and severely beat Linda Spano, 65, causing injuries to her face and eyes. She spent several days in the hospital but is recovering, said Capt. Ken Criswell of the Niles Police Department.

Police said Howe took a television, cellphone and other items during the robbery. Spano was able to escape out the back door and pounded on neighbors’ doors to get help, Criswell said.

The neighbors were helpful in providing information used to identify Howe, Criswell added.

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