YOUNGSTOWN — A man, 24, who was sentenced to five to 7 1/2 years in prison in March for stealing a van with three sleeping children inside from a West Side Circle K has asked to rescind his guilty plea.

Abraham I. Jimenez-Zenquiz claims he received ineffective assistance from his attorney at the time.

In a filing, Jimenez-Zenquiz’s new attorney, Mark Lavelle, said rescinding a guilty plea generally is done before sentencing, but Ohio law allows for the withdrawal afterward “to correct manifest injustice.”

“In this case, appointed counsel provided ineffective assistance to such a degree that the representation created a manifest injustice,” the filing states.

Jimenez-Zenquiz pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping and one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle.

Jimenez-Zenquiz committed grand theft of a motor vehicle, but not kidnapping, and should not have been convicted of that charge, the filing states.

Jimenez-Zenquiz came upon an unattended, running vehicle at 3 a.m, but he did not know there were three children sleeping in the back seat, the filing states. “There is uncontroverted evidence that within 60 seconds of getting into the car, (Jimenez-Zenquiz) heard sounds emanating from the back seat and the children came into view. (Jimenez-Zenquiz) immediately took steps to bring the children to safety,” the filing states.

He immediately gave up the plan to steal the vehicle, calmed the children and began walking with them to his aunt’s house a few doors away to summon police, the filing states.

However, Youngstown police intervened before Jimenez-Zenquiz could get himself and the children to his aunt’s house. The filing quotes Ohio law regarding kidnapping, stating the offense is a second-degree felony if the defendant releases the victim in a safe place unharmed, but Jimenez-Zenquiz pleaded guilty to a first-degree felony kidnapping offense.

Furthermore, the offense requires the offender to commit the crime “purposely,” meaning “when it is the person’s specific intention to cause a certain result.”

The filing states Jimenez-Zenquiz “had no idea that the law carves out an exception for kidnapping cases where there is no clear … evidence which negates the purposely element of the offense.” Jimenez-Zenquiz also had no conversation with his attorney at the time of the plea and sentencing, Walter Ritchie, regarding the issue of the defendant releasing the victim in a safe place unharmed, the filing states.

In the case, the attorney’s “communications efforts were so lacking that (Jimenez-Zenquiz) was bewildered and confused to such an extent that he pleaded guilty to a felony of the first degree he did not commit,” the filing states.

Lavelle asked for a hearing to talk to the judge about the facts of the case. Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to the motion.

POLICE REPORT

A Youngstown police report states the kids’ father pulled into the parking lot of the store a little after 2 a.m. with his kids sleeping in his van. He went into the store, and when he came back out, the van and his kids were gone.

He called 911 to report the incident, but also “accessed the real time tracking device, which was on the van” that told the man the van was in the 300 block of Argo Street, about 1 1/2 miles away, the report states. Another man who had been parked next to the stolen van agreed to take the father to Argo Street.

While officers were on their way to the Circle K, they were told the father had tracked the van on Argo Street, so officers headed there and found a man walking with three young girls beside him, the report states.

None of the girls — ages 10, 8 and 4 — were injured, and they quickly were reunited with their father as he arrived, the report states.

One of the girls told police the children were asleep when Jimenez-Zenquiz woke them up and had them exit the van. Jimenez-Zenquiz was taken to jail.

A witness told police he saw a Hispanic man walk up to the van that was later stolen. Immediately, the girls’ father came out of the store “screaming that his children were in the van,” the witness said.

HEARING

At the plea and sentencing hearing, Ritchie said the theft of the van “was a very impulsive thing to do. He didn’t go very far. The kids, fortunately, were not harmed. I don’t think he had any bad intentions. Quite frankly, I don’t think he knew what to do once he found that the kids were in the van.”

Jimenez-Zenquiz told the judge “I was not going to harm the kids at all. I was trying to get the kids back to their parents as soon as possible. That’s what I was trying to do. And I would never ever hurt them kids, never in my life, never.”

The judge agreed that Jimenez-Zenquiz’s actions were impulsive and “not very smart,” adding, “I can’t imagine the horror those kids went through when they discovered it wasn’t their father who was driving the vehicle.”

Jimenez-Zenquiz then added, “I told them kids when I realized they were in the van, I told them that I loved them and I’m sorry that I took the car, and I was going to get them back to their mommy and daddy. And it was like ‘OK. OK.'”