Out of prison, man convicted in statue incident faces new charges

BROOKFIELD — Richard Couturiaux of Brookfield served his entire 26-month prison term for vandalizing a $36,000 military statue from a Youngstown cemetery in March 2013, chopping it up and selling parts of it to a Girard scrapyard, but he was charged with committing new offenses three weeks after being released.

Couturiaux, 33, of South Park Drive, who has been booked into the Trumbull County jail 17 times since 2000, was arrested Friday on a number of outstanding warrants and a domestic-violence charge from Friday in Brookfield. He will be in Eastern District Court here on many of them Tuesday.

On Jan. 23, 2015, Couturiaux was driving through North Jackson at 75 miles per hour in a 55 zone, when he was stopped by a North Jackson officer, who wrote him a citation, police said.

But Couturiaux didn’t have a driver’s license with him and identified himself as his brother and gave his brother’s birth date, police said.

For the complete story, read Tuesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com