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Man gets 10 to life in child-rape case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Neither Shawn Unger nor the attorneys in his child-rape case had much to say Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to charges in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that landed him a life prison sentence with parole eligibility after 10 years.
After court, however, Unger and a deputy sheriff exchanged words after Unger directed a remark at someone in the courtroom. It is not clear to whom the remark was directed.
The deputy told Unger to shut his mouth, and Unger said he didn’t have to.
The deputy told Unger he had “no right to talk like that,” and Unger said he did.
“[Expletive] if I don’t,” Unger said. “They took my life.”
It is unclear to whom he was referring, but relatives of the victim in the case were in court to watch as Unger, 35, pleaded guilty before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum to two counts of rape and three counts of gross sexual imposition.
The sentence in the case was agreed upon by the attorneys and upheld by the judge.
Unger was sentenced in 2011 to seven years in prison for the rape of a 5-year-old. Prosecutors said the day he was released from prison in 2018, he raped another 5-year-old.
The abuse continued for almost a year before Unger was arrested, then jailed on a parole violation for his first case.
The mother of the child, Alexandria Overholser, 28, pleaded guilty this summer to a count of child endangerment. She is expected to be sentenced in September.
Unger told the judge he had nothing to say on his behalf when the judge asked him before he was sentenced. Neither Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer McLaughlin nor defense attorney Rhys Cartwright-Jones addressed the court.