WARREN — A visiting judge tentatively has set Monday afternoon to announce his verdict in a bench trial in which a Warren man is accused of kidnapping.
The case involves a June 3 incident with a 21-year-old North Bloomfield woman at a Champion car wash.
David Honzu, 64, of Bonnie Brae NE, Warren, faces two counts of kidnapping and tampering with evidence. The case was tried before visiting Ashtabula County Judge Gary Yost in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
Closing arguments were given Wednesday morning before Yost, who said he will need time to prepare a written decision and he plans to give it in open court on Monday afternoon.
Honzu is charged with getting into a vehicle the night of June 3 and threatening the woman with a knife. The woman ran out of the car at the car wash and called 911. Honzu was picked up about four hours later by county sheriff’s deputies near Elm Road and Bonnie Brae NE in Warren.
Prior to the closing arguments, upon a motion by defense lawyer Ross Smith, Yost dismissed two charges, one kidnapping count and aggravated robbery, saying the state did not prove those charges.
If Yost finds Honzu guilty of the other charges, he also must find for specifications that the kidnapping was out of sexual intent, and that the defendant is a repeat violent offender. These specifications will add years to any prison term.
Assistant Prosecutor Gabriel Wildman said Honzu, who has been convicted of two other sexually related offenses, including rape in 1995, is a predator.
“This is a man that we warn our children about, the reason why we tell them not to talk to strangers,” Wildman began his closing. “We must hold him accountable.”
WHAT HAPPENED
Testimony, including that from the North Bloomfield woman, showed that about 10:35 p.m. June 22, a man with a knife forced his way into her vehicle. The woman said she was parked on the west side of the car wash near the vacuums. As she was cleaning out her car, the man opened her driver’s side door and ordered her into the passenger side of the vehicle. The woman testified that when she did not move, the man yelled at her. As she tried to get out of the passenger side door, the man grabbed her sweatshirt but she was able to get free and run north through the parking lot.
She said the assailant, whom she identified from the stand as Honzu, held a kitchen knife and left the car wash in a brownish / orange Buick SUV. About four hours later, two deputies found Honzu’s vehicle and stopped it on the northeast side of Warren near his home.
One of the deputies noted that Honzu was naked from the waist down as he sat on a towel on the driver’s side of the Buick SUV.
Testimony also showed that Honzu used crack cocaine, visited other car washes that night and looked at porn before he approached the North Bloomfield woman.
In his closing, defense lawyer Smith said Honzu was acting unusual because of the drug use. Smith also said he thought the prosecution did not prove elements needed to get a kidnapping conviction.
Prior to closing, the court heard a last state witness, deputy Russ Molinatto, who testified that Honzu has registered as a sexual offender because of a 1995 rape offense and a 2010 attempted menacing conviction.
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 the sheriff’s office.
Honzu has been in Trumbull County jail since his arrest June 4 pending the posting of $500,000 bond.
gvogrin@tribtoday.com
Verdict pending in bench trial of man accused in Champion kidnapping - Warren Tribune Chronicle
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