Grand jury declines to indict Boardman man on rape charge

YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County grand jury Thursday declined to indict Jeffrey Johnston, 33, of Northlawn Avenue, Boardman, on a rape charge township police had filed against him last year.

Johnston was arrested early Nov. 1 after a woman told police Johnston sexually assaulted her in the bathroom during a Halloween party in a Lockwood Boulevard apartment building.

When police arrived, they found the accuser sitting on the side of Lockwood “visibly upset and crying hysterically,” a police report said.

Police then went to the apartment complex, where the party was ongoing. There, they found Johnston, who denied having sexual contact with the accuser, who was taken to St. Elizabeth Boardman Hospital.

Johnston was jailed and released on bond before his Nov. 4 initial appearance in Mahoning County Area Court in Boardman.

In that court, Johnston waived his December preliminary hearing and agreed to have his case sent to the grand jury.