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Youngstown man guilty of 9 robbery counts
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Jurors found a man guilty of nine of 15 counts of aggravated robbery for a string of armed robberies in early fall of 2013.
Sentencing will be at a later for Joseph Mascarella, 20, who looked deflated after the verdicts were read late Tuesday afternoon in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court by Judge Lou A. D’Apolito.
Judge D’Apolito said he wants a pre-sentence investigation done before Mascarella is sentenced.
Family members wept softly in the gallery or shook their heads as the verdicts were read.
The aggravated robbery charge has a maximum 11-year sentence along with firearm specifications of three years each, giving Mascarella a potential sentence of 99 years alone on just the robberies without the firearm specifications.
Mascarella is accused of taking part in six separate robberies in the early fall 2013; one on the West Side, one on the East Side and the remainder on the South Side.
The jury found Mascarella not guilty of robberies committed at Family Dollar and Taco Bell, both on Market Street, and a Mahoning Avenue McDonald’s.
Two accomplices are serving sentences for their roles in the crimes. They testified in Mascarella’s trial that Mascarella was not with them when they did the robberies.
Prosecutors said they found Mascarella hiding in a West Midlothian Boulevard home the same day police and detectives found registers, gift cards and wallets taken in the robbery. The home was where police found the car they believed was used in the robberies, along with a bicycle.
Jurors began hearing testimony May 5 and had video from all six stores as well as testimony from 30 witnesses.
Prosecutors said at trial Mascarella used the bike in the first robbery Sept. 30, 2013, at an East Midlothian Boulevard Burger King and then used the proceeds from that robbery — about $1,850 — to buy a car that was used in the other robberies.