LIMA — A Lima teenager was spared time behind bars during his sentencing hearing Thursday morning in Allen County Common Pleas Court, due in part to an emotional request from the victim in the case — who is also the defendant’s grandfather.
Danny Ward Jr. appeared before Judge Jeffrey Reed for sentencing on a third-degree felony charge of burglary. Ward had been indicted on charges of burglary and grand theft and last month had accepted a negotiated plea deal from prosecutors that called for him to plead guilty to the burglary count in exchange for the state’s dismissal of the remaining count.
Prior to sentencing on Thursday, Reed gave the victim in the case the opportunity to speak. The man, Ward’s grandfather, asked the court for leniency in sentencing.
“I’d like to see him get some help with his drug problem, but I don’t wanna see him get time in prison. That won’t do him no good,” Ward’s grandfather told the court.
Defense attorney Joe Benavidez said Ward has had “a long battle with drugs but has accepted responsibility for what he’s done. He admits to having a severe drug problem,” Benavidez said, asking Reed to admit his client to the Western Ohio Regional Treatment and Rehabilitation Center in lieu of jail time.
Reed went one better, ordering Ward to become a participant in the county’s Drug Court instead of a stay at the WORTH facility.
“You’re at a point in your life where your whole future is riding not on what I do, but in what you do,” Reed told the defendant. He ordered Ward to obtain his GED, get a job, undergo random urinalysis and prepare to enter the Drug Court program.
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