Staff photo / Ed Runyan Marcus G. Cobb, 62, of Youngstown, was handcuffed after Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito announced that a jury had found Cobb guilty of one count of felonious assault in a June 24, 2025, South Side incident in which Cobb hit another man with a metal pipe after the man had made derogatory, racial and other remarks to Cobb at least one time in the past. At left is Cobb’s attorney, Mark Lavelle.

YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County jury found Marcus G. Cobb, 62, guilty Wednesday of one count of felonious assault, but not guilty of another count of felonious assault following a 2 1/2-day trial.

He could get up to eight years in prison when he is sentenced at 10 a.m. June 24. Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito ordered Cobb taken into custody and Cobb’s previously posted bond be revoked because of the guilty verdict. The jury deliberated a little over an hour before reaching its verdict.

Cobb was charged after a June 24, 2025, incident in which prosecutors say Cobb approached a man who had called him a “hurtful and degrading name” at some point in the past and “without warning, whacked (the victim) on the head and his back multiple times with a metal pipe.”

The victim was weed whacking around a fence at a business on East Indianola Avenue on the South Side at the time, Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Kristie Weibling said. Cobb lived on nearby Tampa Avenue.

“Because of the hurtful and degrading name Kenneth Perkins previously called the defendant, (Cobb) without warning, whacked Kenneth Perkins on the head and his back multiple times with a metal pipe,” Weibling told the jury in opening statements in the trial Monday.

“At a young age we learn that no matter how hurtful or degrading words are, we cannot turn to violence. Why is the old adage instilled in us? Because of the rule of law. This case is about the rule of law,” Weibling said. “The rule of law prevents street justice,” Weibling said. Cobb “chose violence.”

Though prosecutors said Cobb hit the other man with a metal pipe, defense attorney Mark Lavelle called the object a “stick” during his opening statements. And Lavelle described the victim as having engaged in repeated verbal harassment of Cobb by using racial and other slurs toward Cobb when Cobb walked past the property the victim maintained and lived inside of. Lavelle said the property is the former Bugno Towing.

Perkins lives at the business, cuts the grass and otherwise cleans up there, Lavelle said. The victim admitted to calling Cobb a name one time a year earlier, Lavelle said.

Lavelle said that over time, the victim had chased Cobb with a lawnmower, used the mower to throw gravel at Cobb, and followed Cobb on the mower to the store and then hit Cobb with gravel from the parking lot. Lavelle said the victim spoke derogatory language to Cobb “daily.”

The jury could have found Cobb guilty of both counts of felonious assault. The charges alleged felonious assault in two different forms. The jury found Cobb guilty of the form that involves knowingly causing or attempting to cause physical harm to the victim by means of a deadly weapon.”

It found Cobb not guilty of the form that alleged that Cobb knowingly caused serious physical harm to the victim. Prosecutors said if Cobb would have been convicted of both offenses, he could have been sentenced on only one of them.