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Two men plead guilty in separate Howland crimes
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A 20-year-old Florida man pleaded guilty Tuesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to attempted felonious assault for attempting to stab a man — and then biting him in Howland Township Park on Aug. 26.
Andrew J. Scott of Venice, Fla., could be sentenced to up to three years in prison after the county’s Adult Probation Department conducts a pre-sentence investigation.
A man reported to Howland police he was attempting to back out of a parking space in the park at 7:23 p.m. when he saw Scott’s vehicle traveling about 50 miles per hour toward him.
The man said he honked his horn to warn Scott to slow down.
“Scott slammed on his brakes, exited the vehicle and approached [the man] taunting him,” police said. The man asked Scott to leave, but Scott tossed a lit cigarette into the car through the driver’s window. The man had children in the car.
Bystander Ryan Lawrence observed what was happening and attempted to intervene. At that point, Scott pulled out a knife and attempted to stab Lawrence, but Lawrence defended himself by knocking Scott off balance and taking him to the ground with the assistance of another man, police said.
The men held Scott until police arrived. Scott had bitten Lawrence on the thumb during the scuffle, police said. The knife came out of Scott’s hand while he was being wrestled to the ground.
A Howland police officer had ordered Scott to leave the park exactly one week earlier after a woman complained Scott had threatened to order his unleashed pit-bull dog to attack her and her children.
An officer found Scott in the park about four hours later and told him to keep his dog on a leash, but Scott said the dog needed to be unleashed to urinate.
Scott then became argumentative, the officer said.
Meanwhile, Brady L. Mowery, 24, of Howland Wilson Road was sentenced to two years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to a reduced robbery charge in the armed robbery of the BP gas station at the corner of Warren-Sharon Road and Niles-Cortland Road in Howland on Nov. 19.
Mowery agreed to make restitution of $761 and have no contact with the gas station or the attendant he robbed.