Robbery suspect has bond reduced

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Bond for one of two men suspected in a July 30 robbery of a Hookstown, Pa., man who was trying to sell a video game system to someone he met over the internet was reduced Friday in municipal court.

Bennie Poole, 19, of North Evanston Avenue, will be placed on house arrest if he manages to post his $15,000 bond, which was reduced from $25,000 by Magistrate Anthony Sertick in municipal court after prosecutors and defense attorneys recommended the reduction.

Bond for another suspect, Nathaniel Carter, also 19, of Winona Drive, was continued. His bond is $25,000.

Both men had preliminary hearings on aggravated robbery charges. Both men waived their hearings and Sertick bound the cases over to a Mahoning County grand jury.

The pair are accused of robbing the man, who arranged over the internet to meet a woman at the intersection of Steel and Silliman streets on the West Side to sell the video game system. Instead, police said, two men approached the victim, took the video game system and the victim’s iPhone.

Police spotted the suspects on Wellington Avenue and chased them on foot, catching them in the backyard of a nearby home. Police also recovered two .380-caliber pistols in the same backyard.