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Jury finds Youngstown mom guilty of 4 counts of abusing her kids
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A jury in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court found a woman guilty Thursday of four counts of child endangering.
Judge Maureen Sweeney revoked the bond of Tamara Julious, 31, of Eliot Lane, and she will be kept in the Mahoning County jail until her sentencing. She faces a total of 12 years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set yet.
The charges are all third-degree felonies.
It took jurors a little less than half a day to find Julious guilty after hearing closing arguments Thursday morning. Testimony began Tuesday.
Julious was indicted in 2015 on the counts for abusing two of her four children, an 8-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy at the time the abuse began in late November 2014 to January 2015.
A co-defendant, Albert Barnette, 41, will be tried at a later date.
Prosecutors said that Julious would punish the two children by putting them in a room called a “slave punishment room” that was devoid of furniture and had no toilet. They said she withheld food from them when they were being punished, beat them with a belt and would dress them in embarrassing clothes or cut their hair in embarrassing ways and send them to school to get mocked.
Several people noticed signs of abuse and contacted authorities, prosecutors said.
Her attorney, Jeffrey Limbian, told jurors Julious is a single mother raising four children from four fathers and took steps to discipline the two that were contrary to what counselors suggested, which was medication. Limbian said no abuse occurred on the part of his client.
The children did testify.