By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Ottawa and Richland counties already delivered two strikes against Jack Lovell Jr. and Crawford County went for the out Thursday afternoon.
The 28-year-old Mansfield man was on trial for theft from the elderly, a fifth-degree felony, in Crawford County Common Pleas Court. On March 21, Lovell allegedly approached 69-year-old Judy Remy to seal her driveway for $400. After negotiating the price down to $335, some work was done on the driveway by another male while Remy wrote a check to Lovell.
Remy stated during questioning that she requested a written estimate from Lovell, which she never received. As Lovell left, Remy recalled, he said he would return the next day to finish the job but he did not leave a phone number.
Remy said Lovell did not return the next day and she didn’t hear from him until he called her on March 23 to ask if she had stopped payment on the check yet. Remy responded that she hadn’t but she planned on doing it. When she went to the bank to do so that day, she found that Lovell had beaten her to the bank by minutes and cashed the check.
“It’s a scam,” assistant prosecutor Ryan Hoovler stated in his closing argument, indicating that Lovell never left Remy with a plan and never finished the job despite having time between March and August to do so.
Remy did not call the police until five months after the incident.
Hoovler argued that Lovell targeted a senior citizen in the neighborhood, talked her into hiring him for the job, and completed a small portion of the work before taking the money and running. He added that Lovell was found guilty of the same crime in Richland and Ottawa counties in 2012.
“Mr. Lovell never took that benefit of the doubt and made it right,” Hoovler declared. “This is not a business transaction . . . it’s a theft. Why didn’t the defendant make it right? Why didn’t the defendant do the job? Why didn’t the defendant refund the money?”
Defense attorney Sebastian Berger stipulated that Remy and Lovell had an agreement to do the driveway resealing for $335 but argued that his client never intended to purposely deprive Remy of the services he offered. Instead, Berger contended, there was a miscommunication between the parties of when the project would be completed and Remy misremembered events from that day.
As Berger ended his closing statements, Hoovler leaped from his chair and swiftly pointed out in his rebuttal that it was not Remy’s fault that the job was not completed.
“He didn’t intend to ever do it. He intended to steal it,” Hoovler said. “How long does it take to seal a driveway? Or at least communicate with your client when you’re going to do it.”
The jury deliberated for less than 30 minutes and returned a guilty verdict for Lovell’s case.
When it came time for sentencing, Hoovler pushed for a stiff sentence on the fifth-degree felony.
“Theft of the elderly needs to be taken seriously,” Hoovler said, adding that Lovell continued to take advantage of the elderly despite having felonies for those crimes in two other counties.
Berger said this case differed from those in Ottawa and Richland counties and his client never misrepresented himself to Remy. He added that Lovell was willing to pay the money back if he had it.
“There is no doubt that this is the third felony that involved stealing from elderly people,” Judge Sean Leuthold said.
Leuthold referenced the acts in Ottawa and Richland counties before warning Lovell of his actions locally.
“Now you’ve come to my county and done the same thing. Preying on elderly folks . . . is disgusting and repugnant behavior,” Leuthold said. “You come back and do this again in this county, I will send you back to prison for as long as I possibly can send you.”
Leuthold sentenced Lovell to 12 months in prison – the maximum sentence for a fifth-degree theft felony – and ordered him to pay $335 in restitution to Remy. The sentence will be served consecutively to any other prison sentence.