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WARREN -- A Youngstown woman was in Warren Municipal Court on Wednesday to waive her right to a preliminary hearing on a felony vandalism charge linked to more than $11,000 in damage to windows at the historic Trumbull County Courthouse.
Joanna La Shawn McCane, 43, of Ravenwood Avenue, also pleaded no contest to a criminal trespass charge linked to an incident at a downtown Warren business that preceded the vandalism incident in November.
McCane, in orange coveralls and escorted into the courtroom by two Sheriff deputies, faced court magistrate Dan Gerin who set a $10,000 bond and bound the vandalism case over to a Trumbull County grand jury.
If she is indicted by a grand jury and later found guilty, the vandalism charge carries a potential prison sentence of between six and 12 months.
Prior to the vandalism incident, McCane had been jailed Nov. 26, 2021, in connection to an incident where police say the woman refused to leave a downtown Warren restaurant.
Gerin, on the motion of prosecutors, dismissed an obstruction of justice charge against McCane. She was fined $50 plus costs and given two years of probation on the trespass conviction.
The initial arrest of McCane occurred about 4 p.m. Nov. 26 when she was asked several times but refused to leave the former Jacked Steakhouse, located across the street from Courthouse Square Park. According to a police report, restaurant employees said the woman ordered, paid for food and a drink, but sat there for several hours, once falling asleep. In the report, the woman denied being told to leave, saying she paid her bill and just wanted to sit there to allow her food and beer to settle.
When a police sergeant told her to leave, she became verbally combative in refusing the order, the report states.
Shortly after McCane's release from jail around 2 a.m. Nov. 27, a woman wearing jeans, a gray coat over a pink hooded sweatshirt and gray winter boots can be seen on surveillance video from multiple angles placing her purse and backpack on the sidewalk and grass of the courthouse lawn. One video taken from the west side of the courthouse shows a vandal picking up a rock and throwing it forcefully at a first-floor window. When it bounces off, the person picks it up again -- 13 times -- and keeps throwing the rock at several windows.
A Trumbull County maintenance official gave a damage estimate of about $11,000.