LIBERTY — A Youngstown man charged with attempted murder after a shooting in 2022 lost his appeal in the Ohio 11th District Court of Appeals on Monday.

Kevin Mallard, 56, will remain an inmate at Mansfield Correctional Institution, serving a 68- to 73.5-year sentence, according to the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office.

Judges Mary Jane Trapp, Eugene A. Lucci and Robert J. Patton of the 11th District affirmed the judgment of the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas on Monday, in the conviction and sentencing of Mallard.

In April, Mallard pleaded guilty and was convicted of four counts of attempted murder with firearm specifications, inducing panic with another firearm specification, improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle and carrying concealed weapons.

The appellate judge rejected two assignments of error that Mallard’s attorney raised with the local court: that the record does not support Judge Ronald Rice’s imposition of consecutive sentences; and his guilty plea was not made knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily because he was not advised of a right to a bench trial, according to a prosecutor’s office news release.

The three judges found the assignments of error to be without merit.

Mallard was directly indicted by a Trumbull County grand jury in June 2022, after he was accused by police of shooting a man at arm’s length with a Glock .40-caliber weapon.

“Mallard was driving on Belmont Avenue with his wife about 3 p.m. on Friday, Jun. 10, 2022, when he stopped at a traffic light at the busy East Liberty Street intersection, descended into a road rage, got out of his vehicle and shot another driver, identified as then 20-year-old Zach Woods, in the temple,” Guy Vogrin, of the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office stated in a press release.

Mallard’s Humvee was stopped directly behind Woods’ Mercedes-Benz in the northbound lane at the traffic light, the indictment stated. He exited his vehicle and approached the open driver’s side window before shooting.

The indictment stated that Mallard walked back to his Humvee after the shooting and drove off. According to the indictment, Mallard then engaged in a shootout with four officers from the Liberty Township Police Department who had responded to the incident.

Mallard was struck in the extremities several times, until authorities were able to apprehend him, the indictment stated.

Woods was permanently maimed and disabled and lost both of his eyes before dying in June.

At his sentencing in March, Mallard could not give a reason for shooting Woods and witnesses said there was no sign of road rage prior to the shooting.