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Defendant testifies she does not remember tantrum at Boardman restaurant
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Dorina Shine says she does not remember the details of running amok at a Boardman restaurant in March 2011 and fracturing a man’s skull with a liquor bottle, but a jury late Wednesday found her guilty of four counts of felonious assault.
Shine, 47, of Youngstown will be sentenced at a later date by Judge Lou A. D’Apolito after her convictions in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Shine testified she remembers most of the details of her day in the former TGI Friday’s restaurant, but she does not remember any details of the acts she was accused of committing.
Judge D’Apolito revoked her bond. Jurors received the case a little after 3 p.m. and returned their verdicts about 4:30 p.m.
Shine testified she remembered drinking and smoking something with a friend, dancing in a cemetery earlier in the day March 23, 2011, and receiving instructions from a compact disc she was listening to in a car she was driving, and entering the restaurant.
But, she testified, she does not remember anything after she complained to the manager that someone shouted a racial slur at her.
“It’s blank. It’s just void,” Shine said of her memory of what happened in the restaurant.
The case took so long to come to trial because Shine underwent several evaluations to determine if she was competent to stand trial.
In opening statements Tuesday, Shine’s attorney, John B. Juhasz, said his client was under the influence of several “stressors” and could not comprehend that day her conduct was unlawful.
Prosecutors said Shine became enraged in the restaurant’s bar area, threw several bottles and glasses, hit a restaurant employee with a liquor bottle then threw that bottle at another man which hit him in the face, fracturing his skull and orbital bone.
Under examination from Juhasz, Shine said she began the day at a cemetery, then went to a neighbor’s home. She had a drink and asked for a cigarette, but instead the neighbor said she had “the good stuff,” and Shine said she smoked what the neighbor gave her before going home.
She said she felt strange but also cooped up in her home, so she went for a drive. The CD in her car gave her directions where to go before she wound up at the restaurant.
At the restaurant, she said she spoke to the manager and asked for something to eat because she did not feel well. The manager told her they do not give away free food, Shine testified. As she was about to leave, Shine said she heard a racial epithet, asked the manager what he was going to do about it, then remembers nothing until she was in the parking lot and could hear sirens.