YOUNGSTOWN — Lewis D. Brown, 36, was arraigned Wednesday afternoon on a low-level felony burglary charge after forcing his way into a woman’s home on Plum Street on the West Side, according to a Youngstown police report and Youngstown Municipal Court records.

The question now will be whether Brown’s story that he entered the home under duress to escape being shot by a man nicknamed “Baldhead” will generate any sympathy from a judge or jury.

For now, he is locked up in the Mahoning County jail, facing as much as 18 months in prison if convicted.

Youngstown police checked into Brown’s story and found a couple of holes in it.

Brown told police he ran into the home on Plum Street after trying to get help from other nearby homes without luck.

The victim of the burglary told police she called 911 at 10:01 p.m. because a man had broken into her home and locked himself in a bedroom. Officers arrived and entered the home through the front door and announced “Youngstown police,” then spoke to Brown, who was lying on his back with his hands in the air. The officer told Brown to get on his stomach and slide back out of the room then get onto his knees, whereupon he was handcuffed and placed in a police cruiser, according to the report. Brown had blood on his knee, so an ambulance was summoned to the scene.

The victim told an officer she was inside her house cleaning when she heard banging on her screen door and a man screaming that someone was trying to kill him. He then opened the screen door without permission and ran inside, shutting the screen door and main doors, locking them, then running into the bedroom and locking that door, the victim said.

The victim said she grabbed a machete for protection and called 911. She said she does not know Brown and had never seen him before.

Brown told the officer, “Baldhead was chasing after him and shooting at him,” the report states. However, the officer checked and found that there were no calls for gunfire in the area.

Brown admitted that when the woman got to the front door, he did open it. He said he “explained to (the victim) the situation, but she only spoke Spanish. He stated it looked like she pointed to come inside the house, so this is when he ran inside and slammed the door shut, locking it,” the report states.

“He then explained she was going to get shot too, then ran into the bedroom until the police arrived,” the report states.

Ambulance personnel arrived and treated Brown’s cut.

The officer stated that it should be noted that the victim “was speaking clear English with all of the officers on scene.”

Brown has two low-level felony theft convictions from February 2023 in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that resulted in him getting 12 months in prison, in addition to another six months in prison in another case in which Brown pleaded guilty to a low-level felony theft.

Brown, who had an address on Willis Avenue in Youngstown and is also referred to as homeless in some court documents, also has been charged with numerous other misdemeanor theft cases in the Mahoning County Area Court in Boardman and the area court in Austintown since 2022.

He also was charged with misdemeanor theft in Youngstown five times in 2022 and has served jail time in those cases, according to court records.