YOUR PROSECUTOR...



DIVISIONS




CHILD SUPPORT




GRAND JURY




NEWS




Dennis Watkins Testifies Before a House Panel in Columbus in Favor of Adding a Nitrogen Hypoxia Protocol to Death Penalty


In the News...

Final defendant in Warren fatal fire case pleads guilty

Repeat impaired driver sees conviction, sentence upheld

Child rapist gets 20-year to life sentence

Convicted murderer loses appeal in 11th District Court

U.S. high court refuses to review Hill appeal

Danny Isom gets 11 to 15 years in prison


27 indicted by Trumbull Grand Jury


Newsletters

Prosecutors on Hill team file brief with high court; OPPA’s friend-of-court letter in support also filed

Goals for 2024

Six-month Update


Parole Hearings

Mr. Watkins letters to the parole board

CASE FILE: JOHN LYSIKOWSKI

 

AGE: 64 INCARCERATED: Richland Correctional Institution

PAROLE HEARING: July 2024

REPEAT OFFENDER: Ninth request for parole from prison

SENTENCE: Given 15 -to life prison sentence by Trumbull County Judge Robert Nader in October 1987 on conviction of murder.

QUOTE: “Without much question, his long criminal history of violence and horrible behavioral record in prison which is non-stop, clearly qualifies him as one of the most incorrigible offenders that this office has seen.” Prosecutor Dennis Watkins

FACTS FROM LYSIKOWSKI’S CRIMINAL HISTORY

For more information, contact Guy Vogrin, investigator / public information officer, Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, 330-675-2485.


Mr. Watkins letters to the parole board

CASE FILE: MARTIN A. PETERSIME

 

AGE: 70

INCARCERATED: Grafton Correctional Institution

PAROLE HEARING: July 2024

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

QUOTE:
“Without a doubt to know Martin Petersime is to know the consummate child sexual
predator lurking among us.  Thankfully the parole board with its past decisions regarding Petersime has kept us safe and more specifically, our children out of harm’s way… from the Petersime criminal history, … (he) has been the “Traveling Pedophile” going from Piqua, Ohio to Cleveland, Ohio and to Warren, Ohio.”

FACTS OF THE TRUMBULL COUNTY CRIMINAL CASE
Court and police records showed some of the young male victims were taking music lessons at Petersime’s 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 by Petersime.

NOTE: There are four of Petersime’s victims and family members registered with the state.

For more information, contact Guy Vogrin, investigator / public information officer, Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, 330-675-2485.


Mr. Watkins letter to the parole board

CASE FILE: TERRANCE STARGELL

 

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 Dennis Watkins noted that Stargell was paroled in 2009 and he stalked a worker to victimize at a dollar store in Campbell. He pulled a knife and threw a gallon of milk on the woman’s male co-worker who tried to intervene.
In one of his prior letters, Watkins stated “The cruelty, repeated brutality and serial rapes shown to a helpless disabled woman over an extended period of time in her own home is beyond reason and understanding and can only be explained as pure evil.”

OTHER QUOTE
The website, blockparole.com, organized by Bret Vinocur of Upper Arlington, noted Stargell’s first female victim died a few years ago, and she spent the remainder of her life haunted by what Stargell did to her.
“We believe to further the interests of justice and to protect the community, Terrance Stargell should be required to serve his maximum sentence of 70 years in prison,” Vinocur wrote.

For more information, contact Guy Vogrin, investigator / public information officer, Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, 330-675-2485.


Mr. Watkins letter to the parole board

CASE FILE: SAMUEL PAUL TOTTS AGE: 49 (BIRTH DATE: 08/09/1974)

 

INCARCERATED: Grafton Correctional Institution.

Up for parole in June 2024 – serving 23-year-to -life sentence for August 1995 convictions of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery in the shooting death of 24-year-old Derrick Trimble. Sentenced by the late Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Mitchell F. Shaker. Totts had death penalty specifications dismissed as a result of his guilty pleas to avoid trial.

“Raat (aka Samuel Totts) had this look in his eyes like a wild look that would put fear in your heart.” – Prosecutor Dennis Watkins in quoting a witness in this case.

This is Totts’ fourth attempt at gaining parole. The Prosecutor’s office successfully opposed Totts’ bids in 2011, 2019 and 2022 citing the seriousness of his crimes, his relatively young age (Totts only has served 29 years of a life sentence) and his disciplinary problems while incarcerated.

For more information, contact newsletter editor Guy M. Vogrin, investigator/public information officer at the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office at 330-675-2485.


Convicted murderer denied parole; to stay in prison until ’28