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YOUNGSTOWN -- Matthew B. Alexander, 35, of Glen Oaks Drive, went on trial Tuesday on two counts of aggravated arson and single counts of aggravated burglary and breaking and entering in a Sept. 9, 2020, incident on Beverly Avenue in Austintown.
Alexander and Ashley J. Levin, 37, of Raccoon Road in Austintown, were indicted in the case, but Levin pleaded guilty in April to aggravated arson and breaking and entering, and will testify in the trial in exchange for a light sentence, according to prosecutors.
Alexander and Levin were charged with setting on fire a carport attached to a house on Beverly Avenue by dumping a five gallon can of gas in the garage and igniting it with a gas grill.
In the home at the time were a woman and her two young children. The woman knew that Levin and Alexander were there and called for help from the Austintown Fire Department to extinguish the fire before it destroyed the house, police said. No one was injured.
In opening statements to the jury Tuesday, the prosecution and defense agreed that most of the factual details are known -- that Alexander and Levin had been acquaintances for a while, that they got together that night at an Austintown tavern and proceeded from there with a man they met at the tavern to the home on Beverly to obtain $100 worth of cocaine or marijuana. The man they met directed them to the home.
But while Alexander and Levin waited in a car in the driveway, the man got out and went to the house but did not come back with any drugs. Instead, he "ripped them off" of the $100 and took off on foot with the money, said Jennifer Paris, county assistant prosecutor.
Paris and defense attorney David Engler agreed that the woman who answered the door had no idea why the man had come to her home and that the home was equipped with video surveillance cameras that showed the front of the home and the carport. Alexander and Levin are seen on the cameras.
Paris said after the man disappeared from view, Levin walked up to the home, knocked on the door and asked the woman, "Where's my coke? Where's my money?"
Next, Alexander came to the door, and the woman called 911, Paris said. Alexander and Levin walked back to the car as the woman checked on her kids, Paris said.
The woman then saw Levin walking up to the carport with a five-gallon gas container and dumped gasoline on a gas grill in the carport, Paris said. She could be seen "touching the control panel" on the grill, she said.
Then Alexander appears on the video walking into the carport and bent over the controls on the gas grill, she said.
"The evidence will show, Miss Levin, Ashley, will testify that he pushes the ignition button three times. She hears it click three times." Paris said the gasoline fumes "combust almost immediately. The carport is engulfed, and they run."
The woman called 911 again. "Her house is now on fire, including the space above the garage and the carport," Paris said. The fire department is located "not too far away," and firefighters extinguished the flames.
The only dispute appears to be what the videos show -- whether it was Alexander who ignited the gasoline or Levin. Paris said it was Alexander. Engler said it was Levin.
The resident posted images on an Austintown Facebook page of the red convertible with a tan top that Levin and Alexander brought to her home. And between the efforts of the resident and the Austintown Police Department, Levin is identified.
Police also learned of Alexander because he drove a white pickup truck and sometimes visited Levin's apartment. Alexander's Bureau of Motor Vehicles photo "looks an awful lot like" the man seen in the home surveillance video, Paris said.
She confessed to the crimes several days after the fire, Paris said.
In Engler's opening statement, he emphasized that the two drank "constantly" for three hours before going to the house on Beverly looking for marijuana.
Engler said the video shows Levin looking straight at a surveillance camera and smiling or smirking after throwing gasoline on kids bicycles. It shows Alexander looking at Levin as if to say, "What the (heck) are you doing?"