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Warren man gets 9 years in fondling

WARREN – A 29-year-old Warren man was sentenced to nine years in prison Wednesday after he was found guilty by a jury in February of three of four counts of gross sexual imposition on a 10-year-old boy he was helping to watch.

James M. Plevyak showed little reaction as Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge W. Wyatt McKay handed down the consecutive three-year sentences on the three counts.

Plevyak faced up to five years on each of the three counts he was found guilty of by the group of six men and six women.

McKay also found Plevyak to be a Tier III sex offender, requiring him to register his whereabouts with authorities every 90 days for the rest of his life when he is released from prison.

The panel found him guilty of fondling the boy once when they were in the boy’s bedroom and playing video games. Another guilty verdict came from when the victim and defendant were in the bedroom of the victim’s brother and both were lying on or playing on a bed.

In each case, Plevyak put his hand inside the boy’s pants at the victim’s East Park Avenue home in Niles, according to the convictions.

The jury split on the other two imposition charges, opting to find no intent to molest the first time Plevyak bathed the boy.

All the acts occurred between June of 2010 and June of 2011, according to indictments against Plevyak, of Idywild Street.

Assistant county prosecutor Gabe Wildman challenged jurors at the time to listen carefully to the testimony from the boy, who is now 12 and who never really strayed from his story. Wildman said the boy and his mother declined to deliver any victim impact statements because they didn’t want to face Plevyak again.

”I’m glad the jury believed the victim in this case,” Wildman said Wednesday.

Plevyak served 18 months and got a bad conduct discharge from the Navy after a court marshal dealing with pornography charges. He was discharged from the military in April of 2010 two months before he and his mother began baby-sitting the victim.

cbobby@tribtoday.com

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