Competency, sanity evaluations ordered

August 25, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

CLEVELAND

A federal judge has ordered mental-competency and sanity evaluations for a Youngstown truck driver charged with interstate transportation of minors with the intent that they engage in sexual activity.

U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Gaughan ordered Thursday that Iraephraim X. Underwood, 58, remain in custody and be transported immediately to a facility capable of conducting such evaluations.

“It appears to this court that there is reasonable cause to believe that the defendant may be so mentally incompetent as to be unable to understand the proceedings against him or properly assist in his own defense,” the judge wrote in her order, which followed a defense request for the evaluations.

Judge Gaughan ordered a report be made 30 days after Underwood’s commitment to the evaluation facility concerning his mental competency to stand trial and 45 days after his commitment concerning his mental status at the time of the purported offenses.

The judge’s order came just before Underwood’s trial would have started Monday.

Underwood initially was charged with taking a 12-year-old girl to Pennsylvania and Michigan, where he allegedly engaged in sexual activity with her on at least 15 occasions between June 2013 and August 2014 in a truck’s sleeper berth.

A superseding indictment filed in April 2015 added charges that Underwood crossed a state line with intent to engage in a sex act with an 11-year-old girl between August 2013 and June 2014 and that he transported a 12-year-old boy from Ohio to Pennsylvania for sex Aug. 11, 2014.

Underwood, who was arrested in February 2015, faces 10 years to life in prison if he’s convicted.