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Champion man gets 91/2 years for fracturing grandson’s arm
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Michael R. Tenney of Champion received the maximum sentence of eight years in prison Wednesday plus another 18 months for a probation violation stemming from pulling on the arm of his grandson last January.
The boy suffered a severe fracture of the bones in and above his elbow, which his mother told the court caused the boy to have to repeat a grade in school, suffer the pain of the injury and recovery and miss out on things such as tee ball and football.
“Mr. Tenney, you got drunk, you got mad and you destroyed the arm of your 6-year-old grandson,” Judge Ronald Rice of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court said.
Tenney, 61, of Woodrow Avenue, was convicted at trial last week on one count of felonious assault and two counts of child endangering for pulling on his grandson’s arm while baby-sitting him and his little brother at Tenney’s home last January.
Authorities believe Tenney did it after believing the boy was about to hit his little brother. Tenney admitted to drinking six to eight beers that day, and Tenny flunked a lie-detector test on whether he broke the boy’s arm.
“I don’t think, as long as I’ve been doing this, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an arm broken as bad as that young man’s arm was broken,” the judge said.
Tenney spoke briefly during the hearing but not to apologize, continuing to deny he caused the boy’s injury. His defense was the boy hurt himself by falling from a couch.
The judge said Tenney had called the boy’s mother a liar because she told a 911 operator that Tenney “had a history of domestic violence.”
The judge listed Tenney’s 17 criminal convictions and also times when charges were dropped to show her statement was correct.
Among his convictions were about eight for violating protection orders, plus alcohol-related offenses, multiple phone-harassment convictions, criminal damaging, misconduct during an emergency and disorderly conduct.