WARREN — Michael R. Derr, 33, of Liberty Township was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison and six months in the Trumbull County jail after a trial earlier this week in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

A jury found Derr not guilty of two counts of felonious assault but guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm and two misdemeanor counts of domestic violence. Judge Ronald Rice handed down the sentence.

Both Derr and the mother of his child testified on Tuesday regarding the woman’s allegations that Derr drove into the back of her car in the Liberty Plaza parking lot Nov. 10 after she and Derr argued. The jury delivered its verdict later Tuesday.

The couple’s six-month old son was in the car. The woman said that prior to the crash she left the couple’s home on Mansell Drive to get away from Derr because of their arguing. She testified that Derr followed her in his car, resulting in her pulling into the plaza, and the two cars stopping beside each other as the argument continued.

Defense attorney Aaron Meikle questioned the woman as to why she did not call police as she was driving away from their home if she was scared of Derr, and Meikle questioned her as to why she didn’t call police from the parking lot. The woman said it was because she was scared of Derr and because there was no time to make such a call.

The woman said at one point Derr was toying with her by backing up like he was letting her leave but then pulled forward again. He drove to another part of the parking lot, and she started to turn left to leave the plaza and saw Derr coming toward her again, she said.

She changed course back toward the Walmart to remain in an area where other people were, she said.

“He’s going at a high rate of speed to catch up to me,” she said. “As I was sitting there waiting to turn, he flew around the corner, and the next thing I knew, I was hit.”

When Derr testified, he said he, the woman and the baby left home to get something to eat, but they argued about Derr drinking that morning, and she drove their car back home. Then she got in a separate car with their son and drove away.

“She gets in the car with my son and she’s acting really sporadic already. She peels off and just drives down the road a little crazy. I followed behind her out of concern. We go to Walmart. We pull over and stop,” he said.

After more arguing, he said he got “aggravated” and tried to get “past her to get ahead of her.” And that is “when the crash happened,” Derr said.

Derr said he drank about a half a pint of hard liquor the morning of the incident knowing that he was supposed to work that afternoon.

He agreed that the woman advised him that drinking was a bad idea on a work day, but he was used to deflecting such comments. “I was upset, but I wasn’t physically responding,” Derr said.

Derr admitted to Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Mike Burnett that he was “inebriated” when police arrived at his house after the accident in the parking lot.

Derr agreed during questioning by Burnett that it was reasonable for the woman to be upset that he had an open container of alcohol in the car.

“She just kept screaming in the car with my son,” Derr said.

The woman was not drinking that day, Derr said.

Though Derr denied during the trial that a gun found in his car the day of the incident was his, he told Rice Thursday that the gun was his.

Derr is not allowed to carry a firearm because of a four-year prison sentence for an aggravated burglary conviction with a gun specification in 2013 when Rice sentenced him to four years in prison.

“You obviously have not learned a lesson to stay out of trouble,” Rice told Derr as he pronounced the sentence.

“So many people say we need harsher gun laws. I believe we just need to enforce the ones that are there.”

Burnett said later Thursday he was pleased with the sentence, saying “this (gun) statute was made for a defendant like this.”