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Woman sentenced to four years for attack in restaurant
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A woman who was convicted of felonious assault for attacking employees of a Boardman restaurant and fracturing a customer’s skull with a liquor bottle was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison.
Judge Lou D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court told Dorina Shine, 47, that even though she had no prior criminal record, he could not excuse her conduct or the seriousness of her crime.
Shine, who cried through the entire sentencing once she was allowed to speak, apologized to the man whose skull she fractured, who was in court but chose not to speak. During her trial in June, where she was convicted of four counts of felonious assault, Shine had said she was upset over the loss of several family members before the March 2011 incident at the former TGI Fridays in Boardman. She also said she smoked something earlier in the day that caused her to act funny, and had been drinking.
Shine said at the trial she remembers after asking a manager for something to eat, and he told her the restaurant does not give out free food. Witnesses said she then became enraged and began yelling and swearing.
“I apologize this ever happened,” Shine told the victim. “I don’t know what happened. I started out that day just a regular person. I walked into that restaurant just a regular person, and I walked out a criminal.”
The victim was in the restaurant celebrating his daughter’s birthday when he was injured.
Her attorney, John Juhasz, asked the judge for a sentence of probation, saying that Shine has no prior record and in the five years she was free on bail she was never in trouble. The case took so long to go to trial because Shine underwent several evaluations to see if she was competent to stand trial.
Juhasz said the judge could order mental-health treatment as part of her sentence, and Shine said she welcomed the chance to get treatment because she wants to find out why she snapped that day and to ensure it does not happen again. She said during her trial that she had no memory of her tantrum.
Judge D’Apolito said he knows what happened: Shine mixed alcohol and drugs and reacted poorly. He said it gave him no pleasure to sentence someone who had no prior record, but that did not make up for the injuries she caused or her conduct.