YOUNGSTOWN — Assistant Prosecutor Caitlyn Andrews told jurors Wednesday that Robert Boyd, 50, of Boardman, who is on trial on two counts of rape and other offenses, “chose to prey on multiple young boys.”

During opening statements in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Andrews said the charges he faces resulted from a 2017 investigation by the Boardman Police Department and search of his home on West Boulevard and another home on Lockwood Boulevard.

“The results of the investigation led to the discovery of child pornography, that led to the discovery of messages in which the defendant sent explicit photographs to a teenage boy,” Andrews said.

“It led to the discovery of two sexual assault victims,” she said. One was a boy 15 years old. “The defendant engaged in forceful, aggressive nonconsensual sex with the 15-year-old” in 2016, she said. Boyd threatened the boy with “consequences” if he told anyone, Andrews said.

In 2017, Boyd met a boy, 17, through social media and took him to Boyd’s house, Andrews said. While having sex, he “begged the defendant to stop.”

But Boyd “held him down and forced (the teen) to have sex with him,” Andrews said. That incident led to the other rape charge.

Another victim was a 15-year-old boy Boyd met on the internet site Craigs-list in 2017. They started texting on their phones, and Boyd sent explicit photos to the boy, leading to another charge.

Among the 15 charges Boyd faces are gross sexual imposition, disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance. If Boyd is convicted of rape, he could get more than 10 years in prison on each count. Judge Maureen Sweeney is presiding over the case.

Attorney Mark Lavelle, who represents Boyd, told the jurors in his opening statements that Boyd had his own business involved with buying and selling “that required him to have significant computer access.”

Boyd had a large house “where the neighborhood kids would gather.” About three or four years ago, “it became known to law enforcement at the Boardman police station that somehow these kids were getting cigars — Black and Milds — and / or some drugstore alcohol,” Lavelle said.

Police raided Boyd’s home, searching computers and other electronic devices, finding thousands of images, nine of which prosecutors will use during the trial, Lavelle said.

“The raid and search of the devices also netted conversations that were engaged in between Boyd and other individuals, some of whom were under the age of 18,” Lavelle said. It led police to seek out some of those individuals.

Lavelle said some of the evidence the jurors will see during the trial is electronic communications between Boyd and one of the alleged victims in which the boy said he was 19.

The first witness during the trial was Boardman police Sgt. Glenn Patton, who said search warrants were conducted at two homes May 12, 2017. Boyd was arrested at one of the homes.

Two agents with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation also testified to their role in searching the devices in the homes and determining which ones needed to be further searched at BCI.

The trial resumes this morning.

This is the second jury trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court since the coronavirus pandemic hit in the spring. Clear, plastic barriers have been placed between or around the jurors in an effort to reduce spread of the virus.