Woman gets seven year sentence for home invasion

March 14, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Christina Direnzo told a judge Friday she has been around drugs all her life and she wants to change that.

She’ll get just under six years to live in a drug-free environment as she was sentenced to prison for a home invasion that she took part in with her brother at a Newton Avenue home in Boardman on Dec. 15, 2013.

Direnzo, 22, was sentenced in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to seven years by Judge Maureen Sweeney on charges of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and felonious assault for the home invasion.

She will receive credit for 413 days in jail she served while awaiting the outcome of her case.

Direnzo, who is the mother of two daughters age 6 and 4 and quit school in sixth grade, told Judge Sweeney she raised herself with help from a grandmother because her parents had drugs around when she was growing up. She said she does not want that for her daughters.

“I don’t want them to grow up like I did,” Direnzo said. “I don’t want to live like this.”

The woman who lives in the Newton Avenue home told police two people, one of them armed, burst into her home about 12:30 a.m. while she was sleeping on her couch. Reports said the woman was forced to the ground and hit in the head, and the two people took $2,500 in electronics and ran away. The woman’s son-in-law was awakened by the commotion and tried to chase the two, but the person with the gun pointed it at him and told him to go back inside.

The other person with Christina Direnzo was her brother, Steven Direnzo Jr., sentenced earlier to seven years in prison for that home invasion and another. Reports said police tracked the Direnzos’ footprints in the snow to a nearby hotel where they found 12 suboxone patches and a loaded, 9 mm semiautomatic handgun.

Her attorney, Gus Theofilos, said his client has changed drastically since he first met her in January 2014 after she was arrested and indicted for the home invasion.

“She now has a clarity that was not present before,” Theofilos said.

He said she had been using heavy drugs at a “shockingly young age,” and had a poor home life.

“That put her on the path to where she is today,” Theofilos said. He asked for a sentence of six years, three on the charges plus three on the firearms specification.

Judge Sweeney, however, stuck with the seven-year recommendation made by Assistant Prosecutor Rob Andrews.