Brandon Moore resentenced to 50 years for 2001 robbery, rape

YOUNGSTOWN

After the victim of a 2001 rape and kidnapping asked Judge Maureen A. Sweeney to ensure her rapist would not be able to hurt others, the judge imposed a 50-year sentence.

Brandon Moore, 32, who has been incarcerated since 2001, will remain in prison until he is 65 years old.

“I know he won’t hurt anyone else,” the victim said. “I think that’s what’s important to me.”

Moore was back in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for resentencing after a 2016 decision by the Ohio Supreme Court vacated his 112-year sentence.

The high court ruled that sentencing a juvenile convicted of a nonhomicide offense to a sentence that exceeds his or her life expectancy constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The decision drew on the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision Graham v. Florida, which determined life sentences for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide offenses are cruel and unusual.

Moore and three friends kidnapped the then-21-year-old victim after a robbery and took her to a gravel lot where Moore and Chaz Bunch took turns raping her.

She was the third person Moore robbed that night.

The victim, who is now 38, told the court that Moore and his friends forever altered her life.

“As Brandon Moore started his sentence behind bars, I started a sentence as well. My prison was my mind,” she said.

Moore also addressed the court. He said he was genuinely lost at 15 and prison has saved his life.

“I was truly a boy acting as a man,” Moore said. “I didn’t appreciate life. I didn’t appreciate my victims and their families and what they were going through. I didn’t appreciate anything.”

Read more about the case in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.