Man pleads guilty to aggravated robbery and kidnapping

YOUNGSTOWN -- James Blackwell, 26, pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated robbery with a gun specification and two counts of kidnapping in a Nov. 3, 2025, incident in Youngstown in which he was accused of walking up to a car and telling a woman he was going to kill her if she did not give him money she owed, according to a Youngstown police report.

Then Blackwell dragged the woman out of the car and started choking her until she passed out and made her and her son get in Blackwell's car and continued to demand that she give him the money, the report states.

Blackwell entered the plea before Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who will sentence Blackwell at 9 a.m. Sept. 24.

County prosecutors are recommending that Blackwell get 7 to 10 years in prison, but Blackwell's attorney, Mark Lavelle, is free to argue for a lesser sentence. Blackwell was scheduled for trial Monday, but his guilty pleas avoided the trial.

Officers were called to Rush and Avondale avenues on the South Side for a fight and spoke with the woman who said she was driving her car from Pasadena Avenue onto South Avenue when she saw Blackwell driving on South Avenue.

She said Blackwell yelled "Where's my money?" She continued south on South Avenue, but Blackwell followed her to Rush and Avondale, about a mile away. She said she stopped to tell Blackwell to leave her alone, but Blackwell got out of the car and argued with her about money he said she owed him.

When she told Blackwell she was not paying him anything, he said he had a gun and was going to kill her if she did not pay. The woman's son told Blackwell to leave his mother alone, and Blackwell threatened to kill him also, the report states.

The woman said she cussed Blackwell out for talking to her son that way, and Blackwell dragged her out of the car and started choking her, causing her to lose consciousness, the report states. She said Blackwell then used a knife to flatten two tires on her car and forced the woman and her son into his car. She agreed to pay him the money, but he had to drive her to her sister's house on Pasadena Avenue, which he did, she said. That is where the woman and her son got out of the car with the woman going into the house, calling 911 and Blackwell driving off.

The woman showed an officer a video Blackwell posted showing what he had done to the woman, the report states. Officers went to two addresses looking for Blackwell, then saw him in the same car as earlier on Market Street, and police arrested him. There was a knife in the car.

Several charges in Blackwell's indictment are being dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea, including strangulation.