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Austintown man gets time for sex charges

YOUNGSTOWN — Glenn C. Lambert, 59, of Woodland Trace in Austintown, was sentenced to 16 years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting two children over a two-year span.

Lambert was indicted in 2021 on seven counts of rape, four counts of gross sexual imposition and two counts of compelling prostitution, but Lambert pleaded down to two counts of sexual battery and one of gross sexual imposition.

Caitlyn Andrews, county assistant prosecutor, said the case started when the older of the two children reported in 2021 that Lambert had been sexually abusing her for two years. The girl was between the ages of 11 and 12 during the time of the offenses, according to Lambert’s indictment.

The offenses against the other girl also were over a two-year period, and that victim was younger than 10 when the incidents began, according to court documents.

Lambert threatened to kill or injure the older girl’s mother and brother if she refused to do what he said, Andrews said. Lambert “abused these young girls for years,” Andrews told Judge John Durkin before the judge rendered his sentence. She said Lambert fulfilled “sick sexual desires, and he preyed on their vulnerabilities.”

She called Lambert a predator. “He’s a danger to the community,” Andrews said. “Both girls have to live with this trauma.”

Andrews asked that Lambert get 20 years in prison. Lambert is required to register as a tier 3 sex offender if he ever gets out of prison. Tier 3 requires a person to register with the sheriff’s office in the place where he or she lives every 90 days for the rest of his or her life.

Lambert gets credit for 530 days already served in the Mahoning County jail while awaiting trial.

The mother of one of the victims was a drug addict whom Lambert helped with her addiction. The woman said she has been sober for five years.

“I got in trouble and I trusted you,” the woman said in her victim impact statement.

“My daughter loved you,” she said. “I don’t understand. I really have a loss for words.”

Jeff Kurz, Lambert’s attorney, asked about six people in the gallery of the courtroom to stand up and be acknowledged for having received help over the years from Lambert and his wife with their sobriety issues. The couple would help people find jobs and help them pay their legal fees and help with the cost of their treatment programs, Kurz said.

Lambert spoke to the judge, saying he started drinking again after 30 years, and “my family fell apart; and everything fell apart.”

The judge said it “almost appears you led a double life, that on the one hand provided financial assistance to people who needed it and for a specific few took advantage of their disease and offered financial assistance only to sexually abuse those who could not protect themselves.”

The judge said he took into account in Lambert’s sentence that Lambert prevented the victims of the trauma of having to testify at trial.

But the charges to which Lambert pleaded guilty make it clear that his offenses were not “a single, isolated moment of transgression under the influence of alcohol, but was a clear pattern of sexually abusing two children,” the judge said.

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