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Family sobs, leaves court as Leonard Savage, 22, gets 35 to life
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
As chaos erupted Wednesday in a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court courtroom during a sentencing hearing, two people kept their cool – the judge and the defendant.
The judge was Lou D’Apolito, who continued reading off the sentences for Leonard Savage, 22, for his role in a November 2015 homicide as members of Savage’s family cried and streamed out of court in tears and sobs.
Savage, also, stood ramrod straight and stared directly in front of him as person after person got out of their seat in tears and left.
In at least one instance, a woman fell to her knees and was dragged out by another spectator. The noise was so loud workers in courthouse offices came to the courtroom to see what was going on.
The family was in an uproar after Judge D’Apolito sentenced Savage to 35 years to life in prison on complicity charges for aggravated murder, attempted murder and felonious assault for a Nov. 14, 2015, gunshot attack on a car that killed 33-year-old Thomas Owens of Burbank Avenue.
A jury convicted Savage in November for his role in Owens’ death and shooting at three other men who were in the car as it was parked on West Myrtle Avenue on the South Side.
No one else was injured, but assistant prosecutor Martin Desmond told the judge that was only because of fate.
“Bullets don’t have names,” Desmond said, alluding to the heavy damage the car sustained from gunfire.
Prosecutors said Savage and two others ran into Owens, and some men he was with at a Glenwood Avenue bar, then got guns and spotted the car Owens and the others were in and shot it up on West Myrtle.
Police said Savage wanted to kill Owens because, in 2004, Owens killed Savage’s uncle as the pair were handling a gun. Owens did plead guilty in the case to negligent homicide and was sentenced.
Jeffrey Limbian, attorney for Savage, said his client maintains his innocence and is appealing the conviction. He reminded the judge jurors did not convict his client of firing a weapon because of the complicity charges.
Limbian advised his client not to speak because of his pending appeal, but Savage said he did not kill Owens.
The judge said he sat through the trial and the sentence is deserved.
“This senseless act of violence took the life of an innocent man; it destroyed families, and it robbed you of your future,” Judge D’Apolito told him.