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Boardman prostitution investigation leads to arrest
BOARDMAN
A woman who township police arrested on charges related to a prostitution investigation tried to jump out the window of the hotel where the sting took place, according to a police report.
Police arranged the sting to take place Tuesday night using a confidential informant. The informant made a recorded call to the woman, Tara Meta, 43, of Stadium Drive in Boardman, to discuss “sexual activity in return for money,” the report states. Meta then told the man to meet her at a hotel room and to bring her a Diet Pepsi, police said.
After the man went to the room and gave her money, police entered the room and arrested Meta, according to the report. While police searched the room, Meta slipped out of handcuffs and attempted to jump out of a second-story window, police said.
Police said Meta continued to try to get away as officers caught her and pulled her back into the room. She said she was attempting to kill herself, according to police.
Meta is charged with soliciting prostitution, escape, possessing criminal tools and drug paraphernalia, the report states.
The drug paraphernalia and criminal-tools charges relate to several suspected crack pipes police said they found in the room, in addition to cash, three cellphones, more than 40 condoms and a planner that listed names and dollar amounts.
Meta was taken to a hospital.
Police also found that she has an active warrant for a parole violation, according to the report.
She is scheduled to appear in Mahoning County Area Court here today for arraignment.
According to Mahoning County court records and Vindicator files, Meta was convicted of disorderly conduct/failure to desist in 2010, then in 2016 was sentenced by Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to three years’ probation after she pleaded guilty to seven counts of theft, two counts of breaking and entering and one count of burglary.
According to a Vindicator story about Meta’s sentencing and her co-defendant’s sentence to prison, Meta’s probation sentence was based in part on her completion of an in-house rehabilitation program at the Community Corrections Association.
Her lawyer told the judge that she was “well on her way to continuing to lead” a drug-free life, and that her’s was a rare “success story.”
Meta and her co-defendant, Timothy A. Esposito, were charged in 2014 in a 72-count indictment related to thefts that occurred primarily in Poland Township in August, September and October 2014, according to Vindicator files.
Judge D’Apolito told Meta during the 2016 sentencing that he would send her to jail, and possibly prison, if she violated the terms of her probation. The Vindicator also reported that Meta is a mother of two and a grandmother.