Johnny Serrano Jr. is seen with his attorneys, Dave Betras, left and Justin Markota, as Serrano pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and having weapons while not allowed Thursday morning, ending his aggravated murder trial.

YOUNGSTOWN — After one full day of testimony Wednesday in Johnny Serrano Jr.’s aggravated murder trial, Serrano came into court Thursday and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter and a weapons charge. It stopped any further testimony in the trial.

Serrano, 24, pleaded guilty to killing Yarnell Green Jr., 32, outside of a downtown tavern early Sept. 18, 2022. The involuntary manslaughter charge states that Serrano killed Green “as the proximate result of” committing the felony offense of having weapons while not allowed.

Serrano was not allowed to have a weapon because of a 2016 robbery conviction as a juvenile in Lake County.

The involuntary manslaughter is punishable by about 10 years in prison, but a gun specification attached to the conviction adds to the sentence. Prosecutors are recommending that Serrano get 11 to 15 years in prison. His lawyers will argue for less. Serrano will get credit for about one year in the county jail awaiting trial.

Prosecutors said Serrano purposely killed Green about 1:40 a.m. Sept. 18 after he and Green separately left O’Donold’s Irish Pub on West Federal Street after Serrano and Green and their friends were asked to leave the bar. The two had gotten into an altercation inside the business.

Serrano admitted that he intentionally met up with Green on Federal Street to “‘go fight,’ and he had the specific purpose of confronting Mr. Green,” Assistant Prosecutor Marty Hume stated in a filing in the case.

But Dave Betras, one of Serrano’s lawyers, said the evidence was that Serrano “did not want to shoot” Green. Instead, “Green pulled out a gun, and that’s when my client pulled out his gun.”

Among those who testified Wednesday was Ashley Pratt, who was Green’s co-worker at a Boardman restaurant and Green’s girlfriend at the time of the killing. She testified that she was right beside Green when he was shot and that he did nothing to provoke the shooting.

After the plea hearing, Hume said he felt that the plea was “an appropriate disposition for this case.” He felt sure Serrano would have been found guilty of some of the charges, such as having weapons while not allowed and possessing a weapon in a liquor establishment premises. But there was “a big debate (between the defense and prosecution) over whether Serrano could prove self defense.”

The offense Serrano pleaded guilty to was “sort of in the middle” of the four charges the jury would have considered, Hume said.

Harriet Blair, Green’s mother, said she will be satisfied if Serrano gets the 11 to 15 year sentence recommended because “I believe everybody deserves a chance.” She added, “I can’t bring Yarnell back. It took a lot out of me because we’ve been going through a couple of years of a lot of tragedy.”

She noted that Serrano “got another chance” because he is alive, “But Yarnell didn’t get another chance.” She hopes Serrano is thankful “that God spared him” and hopes that Serrano will make “critical changes because it is not a beautiful thing to take someone’s life.”

Blair said her son was shot 15 times in two years — “seven times by Serrano and eight times in a home on Perry Street in Struthers Sept. 21, 2020.” Green was one of the adults shot at the same time 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney was killed by a gunman. Green, his then girlfriend, Alexis Schneider, and two other adults were shot but survived.

Aggravated murder charges are pending against two men accused of being involved in that incident.

Green’s mother said she had to help Yarnell recover from the abdominal wounds he suffered in the Struthers case. “I bathed him for a whole year,” she said. “They couldn’t close his stomach, so it had to heal open. He had to walk around with an open stomach,” she said.

She said her son was “something special. He was the type who would worry about somebody else, make sure they were comfortable.”

Serrano was looking at the possibility of spending life behind bars if the jury would have found him guilty of aggravated murder. To find him guilty of that, it would have had to find him guilty of killing Green “with prior calculation and design.” If he had been found guilty of murder, he could have gotten 18 years to life.”