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Man gets five years for Austintown burglary
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
It was the quest for money to satisfy his heroin addiction that led a man to break into an Austintown home in November, take a gun away from the homeowner then take the homeowner’s money, his attorney said Monday.
Judge Lou D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Please Court sentenced Scott Dattilo, 33, of Youngstown to five years in prison Monday after Dattilo pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, robbery, theft, tampering with evidence, being a felon in possession of a firearm and a firearm specification for a Nov. 13 break in at a township home.
Reports said after Dattilo got inside he was confronted by the homeowner, who pulled a revolver on him. Dattilo was able to take the gun away from him, then used the gun to rob the man of his money.
The gun was later found on U.S. Route 224.
When asked if he had anything to say, Dattilo gave a brief apology. His attorney, Rhys Cartwright-Jones, told the judge it was his client’s heroin addiction that led him to commit the crime.
“He had a mind that was manipulated and scrambled by opiates,” Cartwright-Jones said.
Judge D’Apolito decried the recent rise in opiate abuse in the area and the country, saying it is a dead-end road for all involved.
“This drug culture in America, if it doesn’t kill people it ends up putting them in prison,” Judge D’Apolito said.
The judge asked Dattilo if he knew if the gun he grabbed was loaded or not. Dattilo said he was in a stupor because he was in heroin withdrawal and had no clue.
“Honestly, I was detoxing four days from heroin,” Dattilo said.
Judge D’Apolito said Dattilo was lucky he never used the gun because if he did, he could be looking at an aggravated murder charge.
The judge said he hopes Dattilo can use his time in prison to figure out what he wants to do with his life and how he can stay off drugs.
The judge said Dattilo’s heroin use “does not excuse [your conduct], it only explains why you did it.”