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Prosecutor: Youngstown woman may lose sight because of attack
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A Berlin Center man was arraigned Friday in municipal court after an attack on his girlfriend Wednesday morning that may take her eyesight away.
Michael Atyim, 42, is in the Mahoning County jail on $50,000 bond after his arraignment before Judge Elizabeth Kobly on a charge of felonious assault. He also has an additional $5,000 bond on a traffic charge for which he had a court date in December but failed to appear.
Atyim was arrested about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday at a home in the 1700 block of Bears Den Road after an attack on his fiancee, who he said was his sole source of support when he was asked if he needed a court-appointed lawyer.
City Prosecutor Dana Lantz said the victim will have to undergo facial reconstruction surgery and may lose her eyesight because of the attack in which police said she was severely beaten.
Lantz also asked for a no-contact order between Atyim and the victim, saying that Atyim has been calling the victim’s hospital room from the jail, where he has been since he was arrested.
Reports said Atyim and the victim were at an Austintown bar earlier in the evening where Atyim got into an argument with a woman there, and that woman also ended up being hospitalized. According to court records, no charges have been filed against Atyim as of yet in that incident.
When Atyim and the victim returned to the Bears Den Road home, reports said they were arguing over the incident at the Austintown bar when Atyim began beating the victim. The victim’s mother and brother tried to stop the beating. Lantz said Atyim knocked over the victim’s mother in order to get at the victim.
Atyim has several convictions, and in 1993, he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter arising out of a felony and received a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for the beating and strangulation death of his then-girlfriend, Stephanie Hoffman, 20, in her East Midlothian Boulevard apartment in Struthers. Court records do not show when he was released from prison.
Lantz said Atyim also has other domestic-violence arrests and has served prison time for burglary since his release on the involuntary manslaughter sentence.