YOUNGSTOWN — Anguished screams came from the fourth floor of the Mahoning County Courthouse around noon Friday.

The family of Brandon T. Kennedy had just heard Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney sentence the Girard man to 11 to 15 years in prison for causing the crash that killed 12-year-old Ja’Vonie LaBooth in November.

On May 28, Kennedy, 32, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and vehicular assault for the Nov. 17 crash that killed the boy, severely injured his 13-year-old sister, caused minor injuries to another driver, and left Kennedy with a broken pelvis and other injuries.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped one count of felony vehicular assault, two counts of felony child endangering and one misdemeanor count of driving under suspension or in violation of license restriction.

Mahoning County sheriff’s deputies working security in Sweeney’s courtroom ensured that Kennedy’s family had left the building before escorting LaBooth’s mother, Javonne Brown, and her family and friends out of the courtroom after the roughly 45-minute hearing. Kennedy, who was visibly emotional before and during the proceeding, also was heard crying out loudly as deputies walked him out.

But it was Brown’s victim impact statement that took center stage Friday. She spoke through tears, with the court’s victim witness coordinator, Paige Dill, standing beside her.

“November 17 is a day I’ll regret forever,” she said. “It was the last time I ever watched my son walk through the door.”

Brown described how her children missed the bus to school that day and she called four other family members before ringing Kennedy’s phone. She struggled to describe the events of the day — from the moment a neighbor knocked on her door to tell her of the crash, to seeing her son being wheeled into the hospital with a police officer performing CPR, and the moment the doctor told her he had not survived his injuries.

She also said Kennedy lied to her on Thanksgiving when he told her that he stopped at the stop sign at Alameda and Juanita Avenues on the city’s North Side and that he looked both ways.

Evidence showed he did not.

The crash, which also injured Eric Pruitt, 29, of Juanita Avenue, occurred when Kennedy failed to yield at the stop sign. Pruitt’s car smashed into Kennedy’s Dodge Charger, pushing it against a tree, pinning Ja’Vonie in the front seat and trapping his sister in the back seat. Data from the car showed that Kennedy was driving 73 mph through the residential neighborhood — three times the posted speed limit — and that the gas pedal had been pushed all the way to the floor.

“I lost more than a child that day. I lost myself, I lost my confidence in being the mother I was.

I hate to have company, I can’t hear a knock at my door,” Brown said. “I’m just left alone with my thoughts and they’re crushing me, they’re killing me. I see a therapist and it’s not really helping, nothing’s helping me. I will never see him again.”

She said the crash happened only two blocks from her house and she cannot bear to drive down her own street any more than she can bear to go to her son’s grave.

She remembered Ja’Vonie as a loving son and brother and a straight-A student whom other teachers called in to read to younger children.

After Brown spoke, prosecuting attorney Melissa Dinsio addressed the court again, asking for an eight-year sentence on the aggravated vehicular homicide charge and a concurrent five-year sentence for the vehicular assault charge.

Dinsio noted that at the time of the crash, Kennedy was under 16 active driver’s license suspensions. Defense attorney Mark Lavelle, when given the podium, noted that Kennedy actually has never had a driver’s license.

Dinsio also noted Kennedy’s criminal history. As a juvenile, his record included convictions for burglary, a second-degree felony, and breaking and entering, a fifth-degree felony. As an adult, he has been convicted of aggravated robbery, kidnapping, felonious assault and carrying a concealed weapon. Dinsio said his behavior paints a clear picture.

“Previous attempts at rehabilitation have not helped the defendant,” she said. “A sentence less than what the state is asking for would not adequately protect the public from the defendant’s poor judgment, his reckless behavior and his disregard of the law, and it would not punish the defendant for causing the death of one child, causing physical injuries and a lifetime of trauma for another child and causing an entire family such overwhelming pain.”

Lavelle tried to advocate for his client’s best interests.

“Certainly, when these events occur there’s a need to blame somebody, and he’s an easy target; he has a criminal history,” he said.

Lavelle said the crash was a terrible accident, but nothing more than an accident. He also said Brown knew Kennedy had no license.

“There’s no advantage, there’s no protecting society from him, if we put him in prison for eight years or four years or two,” he said. “There was an accident, which occurs every day. There was no ill intent, and to punish him for this particular situation as severely as the prosecution is requesting, to me, is atrocious. It’s horrendous, it’s the opposite of what should happen when tragedy strikes.”

Given the chance to speak, Kennedy’s words were directed at Brown — who did not hear most of them, as she left the courtroom when he began speaking.

He said he still thinks of her as family, though much of his statement focused on himself.

“Nothing’s been the same for me since that day,” he said. “Nobody’s asked me ‘how are you feeling?'” he said. “If I knew this was going to happen, I never would have answered the phone.”

After he concluded his comments, Sweeney issued her ruling, sentencing him to eight years for the aggravated vehicular homicide charge and a consecutive three-year sentence for the felony vehicular assault charge.

It comes out to a sentence of 11 to 15 years, Dinsio said, because Ohio law requires that half of any sentence for a first- or second-degree felony be tacked on as a tail, giving the Ohio Department of Corrections leeway to add more time to the inmate’s term if their behavior in prison is unsatisfactory. This is known as the Reagan-Tokes law, passed in 2019. Dinsio said the expectation is that Kennedy will be out after eight years, but could serve as much as another seven.

She said the prosecutor’s office is happy to have a sentence in excess of what was requested.

For Brown, though, the sentence is cold comfort.

“I’m not satisfied with the sentence. I’m satisfied that something was done, but in 11 to 15 years,

I’ll still wake up with the same pain I have today, the same pain I’ve had since Nov. 17,” she said.

Brown said her daughter will continue to live with it too, although Jahakira LaBooth is doing her best. Brown said the girl still has the scar from that day but all of her hair has grown back to cover it, and she “took her pain and turned it into power.”

“She’s still receiving straight A’s, she got accepted to Rayen Early College High School, and she also got accepted to Ohio State Young Scholars Program, and she’s thriving every day for her and her brother,” she said.