Staff photo / Guy Vogrin David Honzu, right, sits in a Trumbull County Common Pleas courtroom prior to his sentencing hearing Monday. At left is defense attorney Heather Ninni.Staff photo / Guy Vogrin

WARREN — A visiting judge on Monday sentenced a Warren man to a life prison sentence with the first chance of parole coming after 17 years.

The same judge had found David Honzu, 64, of Bonnie Brae NE, guilty late last month of two attempted kidnapping counts, plus another charge of tampering with evidence.

Honzu also was labeled a Tier 3 sexual offender by retired Judge Gary Yost of the Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court. On Nov. 21, Yost found Honzu guilty after a three-day bench trial.

Yost also ruled Honzu to be a sexually violent offender and a repeat violent offender, as well as committing the offenses with sexual motivation.

The case involves a June 3 incident in which Honzu got into the car of a 21-year-old North Bloomfield woman at a Champion car wash. The woman escaped before Honzu got a chance to driving them away.

Sitting at the defense table with his two attorneys in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, Honzu cried as the judge read the sentence.

“Your honor, I am very very sorry that I let drugs control my life,” Honzu told the judge prior to sentencing.

Assistant Prosecutor Gabe Wildman, who had asked for the maximum sentence of 23 years to life, said he was pleased with the judge’s decision. As a Tier 3 offender, if he is released from prison, Honzu will have to register his address with the sheriff’s office four times per year for the rest of his life.

CRIMINAL CONDUCT

Yost told Honzu his conduct, as proven by evidence at trial, showed him to be very dangerous to the community.

“The evidence proved the defendant was in search for a victim and did so throughout the evening,” Yost said. “If not for the actions of the victim, there was a potential for a more dangerous situation.”

Honzu was convicted of getting into a vehicle the night of June 3 and threatening the woman with a knife. The woman ran out of the car at Bud’s Champion Car Wash on Mahoning Avenue NW, and she called 911. Honzu was picked up about four hours later by county sheriff deputies near Elm Road and Bonnie Brae NE in Warren.

In trial testimony, the woman testified that Honzu’s car was parked next to hers at the vacuum area. She was inside her car, hanging an air freshener on the mirror when Honzu opened the driver’s side door, confronted her with a knife and told her not to say anything or he would kill her.

She testified the defendant grabbed at her clothing and attempted to restrain her, but she managed to escape and ran to seek help.

In addressing the sexual motivation specification in the case, Yost wrote: “The court finds that the fact that the defendant went to two other car washes within the five hours preceding this incident, and that he was engaged in viewing pornography (on his cellphone) during the same time frame, particularly in the minutes immediately before he confronted (the victim), shows a pattern of behavior and a plan of seeking out a victim and an opportunity.”

Wildman said the victim did not wish to address the court at sentencing. The assistant prosecutor said Honzu “had the worst criminal history I’ve seen in 16 years that I’ve been doing this.”

In asking for the maximum, Wildman said: “The most important thing you can do, your honor … is to protect the people of Trumbull County.”

Wildman said there is a side to Honzu that “is so dark and so deep that he is a clear and present danger if he is not kept in a cage. … he is evil.”

Honzu was convicted in five other felony cases.

“He has led a life of crime and debauchery, going back decades. He has left at least five victims in his wake, two of them small children. This court finally has the power to put an end to his reign of terror over the women and children of Trumbull County,” Wildman wrote in his sentencing memo.

Defense attorney Heather Ninni said Honzu was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, growing up with an alcoholic father and an angry mother.

“It was confusing for him because his father had pornography all over the home,” the attorney said.

Ninni said her client left school in 11th grade and then went to Oklahoma to work as a welder in the oil fields there.

“When he returned to Ohio, he got addicted to cocaine,” she said, noting that Honzu has dealt with a lot of feelings, regrets and remorse.

“He’s not a monster, but someone who has experienced a lot of trauma,” Ninni said.

On Dec. 12, Honzu is scheduled to be on trial in Judge Ronald J. Rice’s court on a kidnapping with sexual motivation charge in a case dating back to July 29, 2007, investigated by Warren police. That incident occurred near the old General Electric plant on Dana Street NE in Warren.