Judge D'Apolito wrestles with sentence for 2 involved in heroin death

YOUNGSTOWN

Judge Lou D’Apolito said he wanted to keep emotion out of the sentencing Thursday of two people who admitted to their roles in the July overdose death of a man on the East Side.

That, however, was hard as Dawn Karlovec, mother of the victim, Matthew Godfrey, showed the judge pictures of her son and told him why she thought Marisha Robinson, 26 and Jesse Kellum, 28, who had each pleaded guilty to charges of permitting drug abuse and involuntary manslaughter, needed to be punished for what happened to her son.

“I’m haunted by the mother’s broken heart,” said Judge D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Karlovec wanted both to pay some kind of price for using drugs July 20 in a McCartney Road home with Godfrey, 25, who died, although she said she did want Robinson, a mother of three, to get help for her drug problem.

Judge D’Apolito, too, seemed at times perplexed over how to run a court proceeding and deal with Karlovec’s pain, giving her a bit more leeway to speak than most people, and asking her several questions.