YOUNGSTOWN — Michael A. Rivers, 40, was found guilty on all counts Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in his aggravated robbery trial that involved the same two women as in his earlier criminal trial in Trumbull County. The jury deliberated a little less than two hours before reaching a verdict.

Rivers, of Potomac Avenue, could get more than 30 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of aggravated robbery, robbery, two counts of felonious assault and one count of grand theft of a firearm. All of the charges contained specifications that he had a weapon in commission of his crimes.

Rivers was in jail clothing throughout the trial Tuesday and testified in the trial that day as well. He will be sentenced at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 2.

Rivers was convicted in Trumbull County last year of aggravated burglary and two counts of having a weapon while not allowed and gun specifications. He was sentenced in December to 14 to 18 years in prison on those convictions.

The convictions stemmed from Rivers breaking into the home of one of the women in Champion on March 26, 2020. During that trial, Rivers testified he didn’t threaten anybody but let himself in to the house with a key he had made when he was staying there in early 2020 after leaving prison. One of the women is the mother of his child, he said.

In that case, the woman testified they were awakened by noises and found Rivers at the foot of their bed with two guns and cellphones in his hands.

The women testified the guns were theirs and that Rivers must have been in the house for hours looking for them. Officers could not find any evidence of a forced entry.

MAHONING

The Mahoning County convictions related to a May 4, 2021, incident in which he assaulted a woman at her home on Burkey Road in Austintown. Rivers said he went there to talk to the woman about something related to his Trumbull County case. He thought she had done something that was going to hurt him.

He had a gun, which Rivers said was a b.b. gun, and injured the woman by assaulting her. Retired Austintown police detective Doug Scharsu showed jurors photos of the woman’s injuries during his testimony. A second woman at the Burkey Road home was not injured, but she was also in the Trumbull County home and involved in the Trumbull County case, prosecutors said.

Rivers also represented himself as his own attorney in both cases, though Rivers gave up trying to serve as his own lawyer while cross examining one of the two women during her testimony Tuesday. He handled the earlier parts of the trial, but an attorney appointed by Judge Anthony Donofrio last week to serve as “standby counsel” took over for Rivers when Rivers opted out.

Marty Hume, lead assistant prosecutor in the Rivers case, also was lead prosecutor in last week’s Johnny Serrano aggravated murder trial. Serrano ended the trial early and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of involunary manslaughter and a weapons offense. Prosecutors will recomend that Serrano get 11 to 15 years in prison. Both trials were before Judge Anthony Donofrio.