WARREN — The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s office has more ammunition to go after violent crime thanks to a state grant of almost half of a million dollars.

Gov. Mike DeWine has awarded the prosecutor’s office some $495,151 from the state’s violent crime reduction program through the Office of Criminal Justice Services.

Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, with help from his chief of the office’s criminal division Charles Morrow, sought the money — which comes from American Rescue Plan and OCJS funding.

“More importantly, this two-year program is 100 percent funded without any local cash or in-kind match,” Watkins said. “I thank Gov. Mike DeWine for this needed and generous award to law enforcement in Trumbull County.”

As part of the effort to address the issues created by the increase in violent crime, Watkins announced the hiring of attorney Kevin James Trapp, a former Howland High school graduate and former assistant prosecutor in Mahoning County. Watkins said Trapp will assist with prosecution of felony offenses of violence, including homicides and assaults, sex offenses, arsons and weapons offenses.

Trapp is a graduate of the University of Toledo Law School and has a bachelor’s degree from Xavier University. More than a decade ago, Trapp said he briefly served as a legal intern in Watkins’ office. For almost a dozen years, he was a criminal division assistant prosecutor under former Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains.

“With his significant experience, Kevin’s addition to our office could not come at a better time,” said Watkins, who said he expects to make one more hire to this violent offender unit.

“The focus of the grant is to address issues created by the increase in the incidence of violent crimes which have seen a marked increase since the beginning of the pandemic,” Watkins said. “The increase in these offenses has taxed prosecution efforts of my office and requires more time and effort by both attorneys and investigators to ensure that justice is served.”

Trapp also will be heading a new grand jury direct presentment program, Watkins said, which targets violent crime or repeat violent offenders who commit offense at county businesses including shopping centers, plazas, grocery stores and mall areas.

“The retail businesses in Trumbull County are vital to our prosperity and should be safe places to shop,” Watkins said. “Unfortunately this office, as well as the public, is aware of a marked increase in retail thefts and robberies.”

RISKY BUSINESS

Watkins said unabated shoplifting puts employees and customers at risk as well as responding police officers. He points to recent convictions in these type of cases:

l A repeat offender was apprehended after a pursuit for a violent incident after trying to shoplift $122 worth of laundry detergent from the Walmart Super Center in Liberty. Watkins said the offender, identified as Gregory Davenport, 50, received six months in the county jail after pleading guilty March 16 in Girard Municipal Court to charges of theft, criminal damaging and resisting arrest. He also must serve 76 days in violation of probation for similar offenses committed in 2021, the court record shows;

l A mother / son duo, also former violent offenders who served prison time, went to Menard’s in Bazetta and were captured on video assaulting an employee while leaving the store in a shoplifting spree. Both Pamela Lorraine, 39, of Summit Street NW, and Steven J. Lorraine, 19, of Oak Street SW, appeared before Judge Cynthia Rice in early March, admitting to the third-degree felonies. The guilty pleas offset a jury trial that was scheduled to begin Feb. 28. They both face up to three years in prison and will be sentenced after undergoing background investigations by probation officers;

l Another Bazetta store, the Walmart SuperCenter, was the site of a violent felony that went to trial before a Trumbull County jury earlier this year. A 14-year Walmart employee told a jury in late February that she came to the aid of a woman in distress at the superstore on the morning of May 17, 2022. The woman was being terrorized by a habitual violent offender, who had previously served prison time for aggravated robbery. The employee got in the way of Omar Williams, 27, of Warren, as he chased the woman around the store. The employee was pushed into a steel rack and suffered a broken neck, shattered vertebrae and multiple cuts to her liver. The jury later found Williams guilty of multiple felonies, and Rice sentenced him to 33 to 38 1/2 years in prison.

“Any violence reduction program must take into account those offenders who fail rehabilitative programs and continue to commit crime that unnecessarily endangers public safety and undermines public confidence in the justice system,” Watkins said. “They must be held accountable and serve appropriate sentences which incapacitate these career or chronic criminals.”

Watkins points out that such rehabilitative programs, like the drug court docket, have helped many nonviolent offenders, but the drug court docket is not for all offenders.

“This grant’s focus is the repeat violent offender. With many career criminals, the best violence reduction program is incarceration,” Watkins said.