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Sebring man gets indefinite sentence for motel attack

WARREN — A Sebring man on Wednesday received an indefinite prison sentence of five- to seven-and-a-half years on two felony convictions linked to a May 1, 2021, attack on a woman at a northwest Warren motel.

Jeffrey White, 39, of Lake Park Boulevard, was led away in handcuffs after the sentencing hearing before Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge W. Wyatt McKay.

White on June 8 pleaded guilty to charges of felonious assault and vehicular assault. The case stems from an incident before 9 a.m. at the Riverview Motel, 3060 Parkman Road NW.

The defendant, who had been free after posting bond, accepted responsibility and apologized to the victims.

The police report stated Warren officers were dispatched to Room 16 to investigate a possible rape in progress. Callers to 911 dispatchers reported they heard a woman screaming for help. Witnesses entering the room found a man molesting, strangling and applying a stun weapon to the victim on the floor of the motel room. McKay said he was concerned about the defendant’s conduct.

“This is an extreme, serious offense. The woman could have died,” the judge stated.

Officers later found the woman lying on the floor in a fetal position at the foot of the bed. The woman, 41, who was naked from the waist down, was hysterical and barely could answer officers’ questions, the report states.

There was an extension cord on the floor above the woman’s head, the report states, and a stun-gun style weapon also near her.

The woman told officers she did not know the assailant, who was later identified as White. The report noted the suspect had escaped before officers’ arrival in a small silver vehicle — identified in the report as a 2007 Ford sedan, driving north on Parkman Road toward the Circle K store.

Witnesses told officers they were in the motel parking lot when they heard the woman’s screams. Two men kicked open the door to Room 16, the report states, and saw the man on top of the woman with an extension cord wrapped around her neck and the man trying simultaneously to sexually assault her and stun her with the weapon.

One of the men told officers he picked up a chair and hit the assailant in an attempt to stop the attack. As the assailant left the room and tried to leave in his vehicle, the report states other witnesses tried to stop him with one woman pulling documents out of the glove box. That woman was caught under the car as the assailant drove away. She told police she was looking in the glove box for some kind of documentation that would identify the suspect.

The report stated officers later identified White through the vehicle’s identification numbers.

Prosecutors stated some of the attack and the suspect’s escape was caught on the motel security video, evidence which would have been used against White at trial.

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