Staff photo / Ed Runyan Maleka D. Curry, 36, cried during part of her sentencing hearing Thursday. She was sentenced to two to three years in prison for failing to protect her 13-year-old son from the over-the-top punishment her boyfriend, Christopher L. Hill, gave the boy one year ago. At right is her attorney, Walter Ritchie.

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Yozwiak said the evidence in the trial of Maleka D. Curry, 36, and Christopher L. Hill, 43, showed that Curry “is the type of person who doesn’t protect her children.

“She will consistently choose her own self interest and whatever man she is dating at the time over her children. That is conduct that needs to be punished, especially when it results in serious physical harm to that child,” he said.

Curry was convicted at trial in March of three counts of felony child endangering and one count of felonious assault, and Hill was found guilty of two counts of child endangering and one count of felonious assault.

The charges were related to punishment Hill doled out to Curry’s 13-year-old son on May 9, 2024, at Curry’s home on Bissell Avenue on Youngstown’s North Side. Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge John Durkin, who presided over the trial without a jury at the request of the defendants, announced the verdict about an hour after the trial ended.

At the time, Durkin said the boy suffered injuries to his arms, arm pit, neckline, shoulder blades and middle and lower back. At one point during the boy’s testimony, Yozwiak asked the boy to turn his back and lift up his shirt to show Durkin the marks on his back.

Yozwiak on Thursday recommended that Durkin sentence Curry to three years in prison, though the judge later selected a sentence of two to three years. Yozwiak said the only reason he recommended a longer prison sentence for Hill than Curry is that Hill has a worse criminal record. Durkin sentenced Hill to four to six years in prison. Curry had only a misdemeanor disorderly conduct conviction on her record, Yozwiak said. The victim, who is in a foster home, was not present for the hearing.

Curry’s attorney, Walter Ritchie, said Curry was “gainfully employed” with a home healthcare agency. He said he is not making an excuse for Curry, but the way Curry grew up — “the way she was disciplined” — explains her convictions. “She said her parents, her uncle beat her with a belt. That’s kind of learned behavior. She learned from her parents that’s how you discipline children.”

He said Curry has a drinking problem and was intoxicated at the time of the offense. He said he thinks that Curry would not find herself in this situation if she would have “found someone more responsible” than Hill.

Curry spoke to the judge, saying she is “a great mother” and did not “see what was happening at the time” to her son. “If I was, I would have stopped it.” She admitted that she and Hill did drink alcohol at times. She said she knew that Hill was going to discipline her son but it was “supposed to be an open hand whuppin.'”

She said her son would never stay at home. “He just likes running the streets.” But the judge noted that he has not been running away from his foster home. “He’s going to do it again,” she predicted. The judge said in response that there was testimony during the trial that Curry was there at the time the boy was beaten but she denied it. Durkin said he found it “troubling” that Curry was not accepting responsibility for her role in the offenses.

During Hill’s sentencing hearing, Yozwiak said the responsibilities of a boyfriend or other person who “steps up to be a parent figure or to be involved in a child’s life, I would argue owes that same duty — certainly a duty not to cause that child serious physical harm, as we saw here.”

He said Hill went to prison in 1999 for complicity to involuntary manslaughter, discharging a firearm at or near a habitation or school safety zone and was convicted in 2011 of aggravated assault and in 2019 was convicted in federal court of drug charges.

Hill agreed during remarks to the judge that his actions went “too far” and said he accepts responsibility for his actions. Hill got credit for 257 days spent in the Mahoning County jail awaiting trial. Curry got credit for 106 days of jail credit.

TESTIMONY

Testimony in the trial indicated that on the night of the beating, the boy was found at the Southern Park Mall as a runaway and was taken home. He left home a second time that night and was taken home again by Youngstown police.

But soon after the boy went into the house, where he lived with Curry and Hill, he went out a window and onto the back roof of the house. Police became aware of his actions but concluded that the best course of action was to leave and that the boy would leave the roof on his own.

The boy testified that Hill pulled him back into the house and “gave me a whuppin.'” The boy said he thought he got hit with a belt, but wasn’t sure what the object was. He said it “hurt a lot” that night. “My back was hurting, my arms was hurting, my legs was hurting,” he testified.

When he went to school in a short sleeved shirt the next day at East Middle School, the principal observed bruises, and he was sent to the school nurse, who alerted the Youngstown Police Department and Mahoning County Children Services.

The judge expressed concern for the actions of “certain officers” at the home where the boy was beaten not long after they left from dropping him off. “That needs to be addressed,” Durkin said.