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New prosecutor to handle courtroom duties in 2023 case

Staff file photo / Ed Runyan Mahoning County Prosecutor Lynn Maro, left, and her chief of the criminal division, John Juhasz, were working as defense attorneys on a murder case at the time this photo was taken in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, but they will prosecute the aggravated murder case of Kaylon D. Adams.

YOUNGSTOWN — The next time Lynn Maro and John Juhasz try a case together it will be with Maro as the newly elected prosecutor and Juhasz as her chief of the criminal division of the county prosecutor’s office.

They previously tried cases together as defense attorneys, but they notified Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum last week that they will be the attorneys to try the Kaylon D. Adams aggravated murder case. Maro, longtime defense attorney, was elected county prosecutor Nov. 5 and took office Jan. 6.

The Adams case was set to go to trial Tuesday, but Adams’ attorney, Lou DeFabio, last week asked for the trial to be postponed, and Krichbaum agreed to push it back about 30 days, though no new trial date is yet listed in court records.

Adams, 33, of Tyrell Street, is charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation or school zone, being a felon in possession of a firearm and tampering with evidence in the 2023 killing of Christian A. Oliver, 29.

If he is convicted, he could get a life prison sentence, but not the death penalty.

Oliver’s body was found in the middle of the road in the double-digit block of Zents Avenue near Logan Avenue on the North Side when police were called there at 6:26 p.m. Nov. 19, 2023. Oliver had been shot multiple times. A woman, 72, also was found injured by gunfire at the same time. Police later said they believed the woman was shot while checking to see what was going on in her neighborhood.

Adams was arrested in May by the U.S. Marshal’s Service in Atlanta after officers learned that Adams had fled to the Atlanta area, according to a U.S. Marshal’s press release. Adams was secretly indicted in Mahoning County on April 25 and a warrant for his arrest was issued.

Among the cases Maro and Juhasz handled together as defense attorneys was the aggravated murder case against Kimonie Bryant in the murder of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney. Bryant was sentenced to a life prison sentence.

Juhasz and Maro say one reason they are handling the case is that Mike Rich, an assistant county prosecutor who handles cases in Krichbaum’s court, is on paternity leave.

Maro said the case did not go to trial Tuesday because he and Juhasz met last week with the detectives from the Youngstown Police Department. They discovered that evidence that became available about a month ago had not been provided to DeFabio yet. They contacted DeFabio about 7 p.m. Thursday to let him know.

DeFabio asked for more time to investigate the evidence, which is favorable to the prosecution, and Krichbaum agreed with the postponement, Maro said.

The issue of evidence being turned over late to defense counsel is something Maro raised repeatedly during her campaign for county prosecutor. Maro, who defeated Gina DeGenova to win the seat, said Tuesday new procedures are being implemented to minimize instances of evidence not being turned over in a timely manner in the future.

Juhasz said last week that the elected prosecutor in some counties tries cases. And in some cases they do not spend much time in the courtroom. It’s more common for the elected prosecutor to work in the courtroom in smaller counties, he said.

In large counties with a lot of assistant prosecutors, the elected prosecutor often feels it necessary to “supervise the whole thing” instead of trying cases, he said.

Dennis Watkins, who has been the elected Trumbull County prosecutor since 1984, prosecuted 46 murder trials, including nine of the 12 Trumbull County murderers sentenced to the death penalty, according to the prosecutor’s office website.

In February 2019, Watkins and Assistant Prosecutor Chris Becker prosecuted Claudia Hoerig in the 2007 murder of her husband in their Newton Falls home. Afterwards, she fled to her native Brazil.

She lived there for nine years before the Brazilian Supreme Court stripped her of her Brazilian citizenship and had her detained in Brazil pending extradition. Watkins and others worked for years to bring her back to Ohio.

Hoerig was flown to Ohio in 2018 and was convicted in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court of aggravated murder with a gun specification and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

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