CANTON − A 16-year-old male from Akron has been sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to committing attempted murder and felonious assault at a Canton house party in April, the Stark County Prosecutor’s office said.
The teen, who is not being named by the Repository because of his age, pleaded guilty on Feb. 5 to the charges with gun specifications as part of a plea agreement, court records indicate.
A Stark County grand jury in July indicted the teen on two counts of felonious assault, shooting one 28-year-old man in the chest and shooting another 28-year-old man in the leg. The grand jury had also indicted him on attempted murder of the man shot in the chest. All the charges came with gun specifications.
By state law, a defendant convicted of two felony crimes with two gun specifications gets six years automatically added to their sentence.
The prosecutor’s office statement indicated that Stark County assistant prosecutors Mark Ostrowski and Dylan Kobe dropped the second count of felonious assault with gun specification in exchange for the teen’s guilty plea on the other counts.
Stark County Common Pleas Judge Taryn Heath issued the sentence.
Prior to his guilty plea, the teen’s jury trial had been scheduled for Feb. 11.
A message seeking comment was left on Feb. 7 for the teen’s Youngstown-based attorney Ronald Yarwood.
The teen had been attending a party April 20 at his father’s house in the 900 block of 22nd Street NE in Canton, the prosecutor’s office and police said. He got into an argument with a 28-year-old man. The teen left the house and returned before 2 a.m. with a gun and shot that man in the chest and another man in the leg, police said. The teen then fled the scene. Both men, who lived in Canton and were transported to hospitals, survived.
Police later found a handgun in the front yard of the house where the shootings took place.
After the teen was found and arrested on April 24, Stark County Family Court Judge Rosemarie Hall in June ruled that he should be tried as an adult.
He was then held awaiting trial at the juvenile facility at the Stark County Attention Center on a cash surety bond of $500,000, according to court records.
Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Akron teen gets 8 to 10 years for attempted murder at Canton party
Reporting by Robert Wang, Canton Repository / The Repository
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