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Man tearfully enters pleas in home invasion case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Comforted with a hand on his shoulder by one of his lawyers, an East Avondale Avenue man tearfully entered pleas of guilty to charges he forced his way into a South Side home in 2012 where a woman was shot.
Tarell Etheridge, 24, pleaded guilty Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to charges of aggravated burglary and felonious assault for the May 2012 invasion of a home on Mabel Avenue, where a woman was wounded in the arm by a blast from a shotgun.
The pleas averted a trial that was to begin Monday before Judge Shirley J. Christian. Sentencing is set for April 9.
Assistant prosecutors Jennifer McLaughlin and MaryBeth DiGravio worked out a joint recommendation for a seven-year sentence with defense attorneys Mark Lavelle and Andrea Burton.
McLaughlin said Etheridge and another man were looking for an informant in a drug case at the home when they burst inside as a woman who lives there was eating a sandwich. McLaughlin said there were several young children in the house at the time, and the woman who was shot was trying to protect them.
McLaughlin said police never were able to find the man who was with Etheridge, and authorities do not know that person’s name.
At the part of the proceeding where Etheridge had to admit to the charges, he faltered for a second and then began sobbing slightly.
As Burton placed a hand on his shoulder, Lavelle explained his client still maintained his innocence, but he also knows there is enough evidence that a jury could find him guilty, and the sentence would be far longer if the case went to a jury, which is why he accepted the plea bargain.