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Man pleads guilty to revenge burglary against neighbor
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A judge said Tuesday that a 31-year-old man who was pleading guilty in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to breaking into a neighbor’s apartment had a teenaged mind.
Judge Lou D’Apolito told Marques White that the case is especially baffling because White was in college with a good grade-point average and his girlfriend is also a college graduate. Their four children are straight-A students.
But White told the judge while pleading guilty to the September burglary on Ohio Avenue that he broke into his neighbor’s apartment to get revenge on him because he set a trap for his neighbor and caught the neighbor stealing things from him.
But instead of calling police, he took matters into his own hands. He cleaned out the neighbor’s apartment. His girlfriend called police when she saw the items and White has been in custody since.
Besides the burglary charge, he also stipulated to a probation violation from a 2016 heroin charge.
Under terms of his plea agreement, he will be sentenced to 18 months in prison on the burglary charge and a year on the probation violation, which will run concurrent with the burglary charge. Sentencing will be Jan. 2.
“You got all the right tools but your decision-making stinks,” Judge D’Apolito said. “It’s like dealing with a 31-year-old juvenile delinquent.”
White agreed that he was making bad decisions. He said he wanted to get back at his upstairs neighbor and when the neighbor left for Las Vegas, he struck.
“Some things of mine were being stolen,” White said. “So I set him up to see if he was the one stealing them. And he fell for the trap.”
Judge D’Apolito said he could not understand White’s logic.
“But he was smarter than you,” Judge D’Apolito said. “He called the cops. Your thought process is like someone in high school. You let your emotions control your reason.”
White also said he had a crack cocaine problem for the past two years but was trying to get off drugs.
“I was fed up,” White said.