AGE: 66
INCA
RCERATED: Richland Correctional Institution
PAROLE HEARING: November 2024
REPEAT OFFENDER: Third request for parole since 2016
SENTENCE: Given aggregate sentence (18 plus years) for multiple felony convictions across three counties (Lake, Cuyahoga and Trumbull)
BAKSI’S CRIMES include involuntary manslaughter and corrupting with drugs.
Prosecutor Dennis Watkins noted that Baksi has, according to his count, been sent to prison at least nine (9) separate times between 1978 and 1998. “He has committed a rainbow of offenses. He has killed two persons, one of whom was a fellow prison inmate. He truly has been both a menace inside and outside prison walls. His own prison records currently show Baksi’s current risk score as high.”
In his letter opposing parole in 2016, Watkins writes that Baksi, a modern-day “revolving door” subscriber to prison life, brings to his mind the old Motel 6 commercial. “We’ll leave the light on for you” that is for Baksi, “You know he will be coming back.”
Watkins now points to Baksi’s horrific record of breaking institutional rules inside prison, pointing at dozens of them since Watkins wrote the board in 2016. In fact, this inmate has not missed a year without having one or more rules violations since 2007 (the year our records go back to).
“However as recent history shows, there is asilver lining with Baksi’s horrendous record of crime. He has not been sentenced back to prison from any Ohio county since 1998 because he has stayed behind prison walls! Please keep him where he is removed from others in society until January 16, 2034, as the law provides, and common sense requires.”
BAKSI’s LIST OF CONVICTIONS SINCE AGE 19
February 4, 1978: Attempted Robbery
August 25, 1979: Theft
October 19, 1979: Robbery
December 29, 1979: Receiving Stolen Property
October 13, 1981: Aggravated Vehicular Homicide (Prison)
September 30, 1983: Larceny and Grand Theft
December 19, 1983: Receiving Stolen Property (Prison)
February 22, 1984: Possession Criminal Tools
April 17, 1984 : Grand Theft (Prison)
March 21, 1986: Burglary, Grand Theft and Burglary (Prison)
July 24, 1989: Robbery (Prison)
November 29, 1989: Theft, Drug Abuse, Possession Criminal Tools (Prison)
May 15, 1991: Theft
April 13, 1994 : Grand Theft (Prison)
February 3, 1995: Drug Law, Permitting Drug Abuse, Possession Criminal Tools
November 2, 1995: Grand Theft (Prison)
May 11, 1998: Involuntary Manslaughter and Corrupt/Drug Trafficking in Heroin (Prison)
For more information, contact Guy M. Vogrin, public information officer/investigator for the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office at 330-675-2485.
Inmate Christopher Ferrell, who was convicted of aggravated murder in 1993 for the Feb. 11, 1992, shooting death of Douglas Lash in Newton Township, has received parole after serving over 30 years of his life sentence.
The Ohio Adult Parole Authority, after a full board hearing on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, voted 5-4 to release Ferrell. Board chairman Lisa Hoying said Ferrell will be released on Nov. 18, 2024, and begin a five-year highly supervised parole.
Seven persons testified on behalf of Ferrell at the hearing, in addition to public defender Ross Smith. Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Charles Morrow argued against parole for Ferrell, who is expected to be living in Stark County.
For more information or questions about the parole hearing, please contact JoEllen Smith, communications chief for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction at (614) 752-1164.
Public comments about this case can be forwarded to the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, via their website https://drc.ohio.gov/systems-and-services/1-parole/parole-board-hearing-input
For more information, contact Guy M. Vogrin, investigator and public information officer of the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office at 330-675-2485.
Inmate Maximillian Bell, who was given a 12- to 50-year prison sentence by Trumbull County Judge Andrew D. Logan in November 1996, had his bid for parole rejected by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority and will remain in Richland Correctional Institution.
Mary Jo Hoso, victim/witness coordinator for the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Officer, learned of the parole board’s action on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024.
According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections website, Bell’s next bid for parole will occur in August 2028.
Trumbull County Prosecuting Attorney Dennis Watkins was pleased with the decision of the board. In recent letters to the board, Watkins stated Bell remainsdangerous to society and is a sociopath and would not obey the laws and rules of parole if released.
Bell was convicted in 1996 of charges of involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in the death of mark Heltzel of Warren. At the time, he was a juvenile and was bound over by the juvenile court for adult prosecution.
This was Bell’s fourth request of parole.
According to Watkins, Bell’s involvement with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction over many years has not appeared to modify or improve the behavior he established as a juvenile. According to an institution report summary dated Nov. 7, 2022, Bell’s infraction involved performing a lewd act with his private part while looking at two correction officers “as if he was stalking the officers like a predator.” He was charged with rule violations involving seductive or obscene acts, indecent exposure, exhibitionistic masturbation.
For more information, contact Guy Vogrin, investigator / public information officer, Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, 330-675-2485.
AGE: 70
INCARCERATED: Grafton Correctional Institution
REPEAT OFFENDER: Fifth parole from prison request
SENTENCE: Given 12 -to 40-year sentence on 1992 convictions of 20 sex counts including rape, pandering obscenity involving minors, minor in nudity material, pandering sex material involving minors, corrupting minors, disseminating sexual material to minors
Mary Jo Hoso, administrator of our Victim/Witness Division, informed Prosecutor Watkins of the parole board decision on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, that repeat violent offender and child rapist Martin Petersime has been denied parole until at least May 2027.
Thankful for this action, the prosecutor’s office also notes that the Ohio Parole Board has repeatedly turned down Petersime’s release on parole. Petersime, 70, has now served 32 years in prison, most recently in Grafton Correctional Institution.
“The children of Ohio and elsewhere are safe with this chronic child sexual predator in prison,” said Prosecutor Dennis Watkins.
Petersime had a parole hearing in July 2024, his fifth after being given a 12 -to 40-year sentence on 1992 convictions of 20 separate felony sex offenses involving at least six different minors, including rape, pandering obscenity and sexual materials involving minors, minors in nudity material, corrupting minors, and disseminating sexual material to minors.
“Without a doubt to know Martin Petersime is to know the consummate child sexual predator lurking among us,” Prosecutor Watkins has written in letters to the parole board opposing his release. “From the Petersime criminal history, … (he) has been the ‘Traveling Pedophile’ going from Piqua, Ohio, to Cleveland, Ohio, and to Warren, Ohio.”
Court and police records showed some of Petersime’s young male victims were taking music lessons at his downtown Warren Music Center, while others were hired to clean up or were enticed there with marijuana that Petersime admitted he kept handy for that reason. None of the victims were named during the highly publicized criminal case, except the one who turned in the music teacher on April 28, 1992, by going to the Warren Police Department with a pornographic videotape made at the music store by Petersime trying to entice a child to perform sexual acts while dancing to the rock music of Van Halen.
Even after spending many years in prison and given numerous rehabilitative programs, Petersime was caught by prison officials downloading pornography and committing lewd sexual acts. (see attached letters in opposition)
For more information, contact Guy Vogrin, investigator / public information officer, Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, 330-675-2485.
UPDATE, August 5, 2024
AGE: 55
INCARCERATED: Chillicothe Correctional Institution
PAROLE HEARING: June 2024
REPEAT OFFENDER: Sixth parole from prison request
SENTENCE: Given 15 -to 70-year sentence on 1987 convictions of rape, felonious assault, aggravated burglary, and gross sexual imposition
CRIME: Broke into SW Warren home of 62-year-old woman, who was speech impaired, stabbed her dog, then bound her and repeatedly raped her while accomplice removed items from her home.
Prosecutor Watkins is pleased to announce today that his office has been informed by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority that convicted sexual offender and predator Terrance Stargell, shown at left, has been denied parole and will not be considered again by the state parole board until an April 2027 hearing.
The prosecutor’s office, along with the victim and her family, have repeatedly opposed Stargell’s release since his 1987 convictions by a Trumbull County jury for rape, felonious assault, aggravated burglary, and gross sexual imposition
Stargell was given a prison sentence of 15 to 70 years by then Common Pleas Judge Mitchell F. Shaker for breaking into the southwest Warren home of a 62-year-old woman, who was speech-impaired. He stabbed her dog to death, before attacking and repeatedly raping the victim.
In Mr. Watkins’ long tenure in office, the prosecutor said “Stargell’s vicious crimes against an elderly disabled homeowner is beyond belief and can only be viewed as acts of a domestic terrorist.”
“The facts speak for themselves,” Watkins said.
In his letter to the parole board, Watkins wrote that Stargell on New Year’s Eve 1986 burglarized the Loveless Avenue home of the disabled retiree who was living alone. He stayed in the home terrorizing her for approximately six hours, including stabbing her pet dog “Boo” many times, even going under the kitchen table after the dog. Stargell then tied the woman’s hands with black nylon socks and hit her four or five times in the face, knocking off her glasses.
He then tied her feet with the brown twine from the woman’s hanging baskets and then struck her more times before raping her in all her cavities. Afterward, Stargell put the woman on her couch and gagged her mouth with the white socks she was wearing. Then he ransacked the home with a female accomplice stealing many personal items including two televisions, a clock radio, four table lamps, a sweeper, an iron, jewelry, purses, personal medication, cash, and even her ID card (as if her existence had no meaning to him).
“It’s remarkable that any human being could be so vicious and cruel to an innocent and helpless elderly person he did not even know,” Watkins wrote.
Stargell, 55, will now remain incarcerated in Chillicothe Correctional Institution for at least three more years.
(see Watkins’ attached letters in opposition to Stargell’s parole
For more information, contact Guy Vogrin, investigator / public information officer, Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, 330-675-2485.