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Prosecutors: No clemency for robbery accomplice
YOUNGSTOWN
One of two people sentenced to 41 years for the robbery and attempted murder of a Kentucky Fried Chicken manager in 2008 is seeking clemency from the Ohio Parole Board.
Mahoning County prosecutors are “strongly opposed” to granting Hattie Gilbert, 31, clemency in the March 2008 attack, which left Joseph Kaluza paralyzed from the neck down, according to a letter the office sent to a parole board officer.
That day, Gilbert and her accomplice, Taran Helms, 33, both of Youngstown, were waiting for Kaluza as he left the city’s South Side KFC to deposit $300 at a bank. Gilbert drove her vehicle into Kaluza’s, then Helms approached the vehicle and fired a single shot into Kaluza’s neck, paralyzing him instantly.
Gilbert later admitted to investigators she and Helms planned the robbery. She followed Kaluza for weeks, learning his routines and even bought bullets for Helms’ gun two weeks before the robbery.
A jury convicted Helms of attempted murder, aggravated robbery, felonious assault and kidnapping, and Gilbert of complicity in those crimes. They were each sentenced to a total of 50 years in prison, reduced in 2012 to 41 after the appellate courts merged firearm specifications.
“It’s kind of hard to comprehend because it makes people unafraid to commit crimes because they know they’ll get a light sentence,” Kaluza is quoted in The Vindicator at the time. “I basically have a life sentence; my sentence cannot be reduced; and they get an easier sentence than I do. I don’t think that’s very fair.”
Kaluza died in 2015 at age 49 after numerous illnesses and hospitalizations, prosecutors said. His wife, Lisa, died two years prior.
“To my knowledge, Joe Kaluza led a healthy, law-abiding life before he encountered these two criminals,” reads the letter signed by Prosecutor Paul Gains. “As a direct result of his injuries and paralysis, Mr. Kaluza and his family suffered needlessly solely to satisfy the greed of Hattie Gilbert and Taran Helms.”