Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN — A jury found Constantina K. Covert, 56, of Valley Road in Salem, not guilty of felony burglary and misdemeanor theft Wednesday during a one-day trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

The charges stemmed from a July 24 incident at a home on North 15th Street in Sebring. The resident of the home testified that she was sleeping about 9 a.m., heard a noise and went downstairs to investigate, “and Miss Covert was coming out of my bathroom,” the resident said.

Covert had stayed at the home two years earlier.

“I was shocked. I didn’t know why she was there. I asked her what she was doing there and she said she was allowed in,” the resident testified. She asked Covert who let her in, and Covert told her the name of a man both women knew, but the resident said, “I don’t know anything about this.”

The resident said she told Covert several times to leave, but she wouldn’t. Covert said the man told her she could be there and told the resident that she had come to get items that belonged to her.

“Then she just plowed through me,” the resident said. The resident then pushed Covert “as much as I could, and I called police,” she said.

The resident had allowed Covert to stay in the home for about three months in the summer of 2022, but the key she had in 2022 no longer worked in 2024, the resident said, adding that Covert was not allowed back in the home because of a “falling out” that had taken place earlier.

The man and Covert also testified, as well as Sebring Police Detective Andrew Reed, who investigated the incident. Attorney Mark Lavelle represented Covert.