Man gets nine years for shooting
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Joseph Williams denied everything Wednesday except wounding the man Judge Maureen Sweeney was sentencing him for shooting earlier this year.
Williams, 61, said he did not take the money that started the shooting.
He said that he was taken from his home while on his sickbed by a group of people looking for that money, and that when he did shoot Roderick Wilson on March 11, he was just trying to protect himself. He was trying to punch Wilson with a gun he had when the gun went off.
“I wanted him [Wilson] to feel the same fear I was feeling. I was scared to death,” Williams said in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. “They did me really bad.”
Judge Sweeney sentenced Williams to nine years in prison for the shooting, six for a charge of felonious assault he pleaded guilty to Aug. 31 and an additional three years because a firearm was used in the crime.
Assistant Prosecutor Rob Andrews was seeking a sentence of 10 years. He said Wilson is in Columbus being treated for the wound he suffered in the shooting. One of the bullets is lodged in Williams’ spine, and he had no use of his left leg, although that is not a direct result of the bullet, Andrews said.
A bullet went through Wilson’s liver and stomach, which is the source of problems he is being treated for in Columbus, Andrews said.
Andrews said both men have lengthy criminal records.
Wilson was shot in a home in the 700 block of Linwood Avenue. The shooting stemmed from an argument over missing money that a woman accused Williams of taking, said Williams’ attorney, Mark Carfolo.
Carfolo said his client is remorseful for the shooting and has been since the moment Carfolo was retained. Carfolo said the day of the shooting, police already were called once to the home to break up the argument, and his client had left and was later dragged out of his house by a group of people and returned to the crime scene by them.
“They forced me to leave my home,” Williams said.