Howland man sentenced to 14 years for aggravated robbery

Staff report

WARREN

Gayshawn Bryant had a substantial criminal record before he turned 18 and showed no remorse for the aggravated robbery he committed last Dec. 30, after he turned 18, a judge said.

Now the former Howland High School sophomore is going to prison for 14 years.

Judge Ronald Rice of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court sentenced Bryant Thursday to the maximum penalty.

Bryant, of High Street Northeast in Howland, was convicted at trial of emerging from the woods with another young male near a house on Clifton Drive Northeast in Howland, then slamming a boy, 17, multiple times to the ground in the boy’s driveway.

Bryant then held a gun to the boy’s head and asked who was in his house. Bryant and the other male then took the victim’s phone, and the victim ran away. The victim knew Bryant, he said.

Bryant’s criminal record began when he was 15 with an aggravated trespassing conviction in Trumbull County Juvenile Court, Judge Rice noted.

It was followed by a menacing conviction out of Howland when he was 16 and forgery convictions, a probation violation and a burglary conviction when he was 17.

He had just turned 18 several weeks earlier when he committed the aggravated robbery, according to court records.

In addition, recordings of telephone calls Bryant made while locked up in the Trumbull County Jail indicated that he had no remorse for the Dec. 30 robbery, the judge said.

In one, he said he was going to “catch a murder case when I get out” because he’s going to “really hurt” the robbery victim. “He’s dead, bro,” Bryant said while using another inmate’s PIN to try to avoid having his phone calls recorded.

He told a young female in another recorded conversation: “You don’t know anything if you go to court.”