YOUNGSTOWN — Robert G. Ribarin, 40, of North Brockway Avenue, pleaded guilty to a reduced attempted felonious assault charge Tuesday in an April 29 incident in which he tried to hit another man with a car he was driving.

The charge is a third-degree felony, and he could get up to 36 months in prison. Kyle Hilles, assistant county prosecutor, told Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that prosecutors are recommending that Ribarin get 30 months in prison.

Ribarin will be sentenced later.

A Youngstown police report states that police were called to a home on Wesley Avenue on the West Side for a fight.

The caller said a man in a blue Ford Escape tried to hit him with his vehicle.

The driver also had allegedly struck another vehicle in the parking lot of the Dollar Tree store on Mahoning Avenue before fleeing toward downtown. An officer located the Escape sideways on Rhoda Avenue near Mahoning Avenue.

As the officer inspected the vehicle, a man, later identified as Ribarin, approached the officer from the area of Wesley Avenue.

Ribarin said he was a passenger in the vehicle that had been involved in an altercation on Wesley Avenue.

He said he had been with a woman on North Brockway Avenue when they observed her ex-boyfriend come to the home.

At that point, knowing her children would be home alone on Wesley Avenue, they rushed over to her home to retrieve them, he told police.

On the way there, they pulled into the Dollar Tree parking lot, and the woman’s ex-boyfriend pulled into the lot and started to ram the woman’s vehicle.

According to Ribarin, the woman then got out of the car and ran to the home on Wesley to retrieve her children.

Police spoke to a man at the Wesley Avenue home, and he said he and the woman had been arguing in the days prior, and she had left the home.

He said he packed the woman’s things into his truck and went to the Brockway address to return them to her. When he got there, he saw she was there and sped back to Wesley because he had left his small children on Wesley alone.

When he got back to Wesley, he saw a vehicle in his neighbor’s driveway, and the vehicle drove through the yard toward him in his own driveway and tried to hit him, he told police.

He said he thought the driver was the woman, but he realized it was not when she “appeared out of the second-story window.”

He said he did not know who was driving the car. He said the vehicle went to the Dollar Tree and struck another vehicle in the parking lot.

The woman told police she and Ribarin went to the home on Wesley when she realized her kids were on Wesley alone and went into the house and did not see what was going on outside.

She said Ribarin was driving her car because he had a valid driver’s license.

She said she had been gone from the home on Wesley because of an argument between her and the other man.

Police said various factors, including tire tracks in the yard on Wesley, led to Ribarin being charged with felonious assault, a Youngstown police report states. Ribarin was taken to jail.

Staff photo / Ed Runyan
Robert G. Ribarin, 40, of North Brockway Avenue, is seen during his plea hearing Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. He pleaded guilty to a reduced attempted felonious assault charge Tuesday in an April 29 incident in which he tried to hit another man with a car he was driving.