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Two Trumbull hostage-takers gets additional 7 years in prison
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
With separate plea agreements Tuesday and Wednesday, the criminal cases involving the men who took a Trumbull County Jail corrections officer hostage April 23, 2014, were completed with each getting an additional seven years in prison.
Kevin T. Johns of Cincinnati on Tuesday and Richard D. Ware of Warren on Wednesday pleaded guilty in county common pleas court to kidnapping, aggravated robbery, possessing a deadly weapon while under detention, felonious assault and resistance to lawful authority.
Johns, 25, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for participating in the hostage taking, which will be served at the same time as the 28 years he got for raping one female and kidnapping another in 2013.
Ware, 27, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, which will be served at the same time as the 23 years he got earlier for three counts of aggravated robbery and one of felonious assault for 2013 offenses.
The third man involved, David Martin, 30, of Cleveland was not charged because his other sentence is the death penalty and 61 years in prison for a 2012 Warren murder and attempted murder, so prosecutors chose not to bring him to trial on the hostage-taking.
The hostage situation occurred eight days after Johns was sentenced for his earlier crimes.
Johns, Ware and Martin took a corrections officer hostage using a knives made from plastic spoons.
The standoff lasted five hours and ended peacefully.
Johns, 25, moved to Warren because of meeting now-deceased Warren man Taemarr Walker in prison and accepting his invitation to stay with him, prosecutors said. Walker, 24, died Oct. 19, 2013, in a confrontation with a Warren police officer.
Mike Burnett, assistant county prosecutor, said the corrections officer, Joe Lynn, is still not back to work fulltime.
“He’s been through a lot,” Burnett said.
“He’s back at work on a limited basis.”
Burnett said he hopes the completion of the criminal cases against Ware and Johns will “help [Lynn] move on and get some closure. We really hope to have him back in a full capacity at some point,” he said.