Boardman man to be sentenced for burglary of cop’s home

Staff report

WARREN

A 27-year-old Boardman man who posted a photograph on the Instagram website showing him in a stolen police uniform and badge and holding a stolen gun has pleaded guilty to burglary and two counts of grand theft.

Michael S. Reddinger of Cascade Drive entered the plea before Judge Ronald Rice of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on Thursday. He will be sentenced after the county’s Adult Probation Department conducts a pre-sentence investigation.

Girard police said Reddinger trespassed into a house on Kline Street in Girard on June 15 by removing an air-conditioning unit and took two handguns, a Brookfield Township police uniform and a Kindle Fire tablet computer.

The items belonged to the resident, who was a Brookfield police officer at the time.

Police learned Reddinger had pawned the Kindle Fire at an Austintown pawn shop and that he had posted a photo on Instagram of himself wearing the stolen Brookfield police uniform and badge and holding one of the stolen handguns.

Reddinger could get more than 10 years in prison.

Judge Rice also sentenced Verdarell L. Lowery, 43, of Logan Avenue Northeast to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and kidnapping, both with specifications that he used a gun.

Niles police said Lowery had been staying with a 20-year-old man and his father in an apartment on Youngstown Road when the father decided Sept. 6 that Lowery needed to leave.

The son gave Lowery a ride from the apartment, and Lowery directed him to Waddell Park in Niles. Lowery used a gun to steal the man’s car.