23-year-old nets time in sex case | News, Sports, Jobs – The Vindicator

YOUNGSTOWN — Nicholas J. Sammartino, 23, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty earlier to several sex charges involving a girl, 15.

His offenses — unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor — took place from Nov. 1, 2021, through Dec. 13, 2021.

With his newest conviction, Sammartino is now a tier 3 sex offender who has to register his place of residence every 90 days for the rest of his life, said Judge Anthony Donofrio, who carried out the sentencing.

Sammartino already was a tier-2 sex offender before this incident, said Kevin Day, assistant county prosecutor. Sammartino earlier was convicted of attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and importuning after being arrested in 2019 by the Mahoning County Human Trafficking Task Force in a sex sting.

Importuning in Ohio is soliciting another person below a certain age to engage in sexual activity.

In that case, he was trying to meet what Sammartino thought was a 15-year-old child, but actually was a member of law enforcement, Day said.

Day said Sammartino not only did not learn from the 2019 charges but has “graduated from attempting to commit these offenses to actually committing them.

“He obviously knew this was the wrong thing to do because he had been convicted of these types of crimes before, and yet he decided he was going to do it again anyway,” Day said.

Day said the only option this time is “to remove him from society for a significant amount of time.” Sammartino also has a previous burglary conviction.

The pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor is for an explicit video on his phone of the girl, Day said. The offenses Sammartino committed this time did not involve a sex sting. They came to the attention of authorities “another way,” Day said.

Brian Tareshawty, Sammartino's attorney, said Sammartino and the victim were “dating,” but Sammartino “should have know better than to meet with a 15-year-old girl, but I'm just saying the victim … is not a child at 15. She was making decisions to see someone.”

But Donofrio told Tareshawty that a 15-year-old girl cannot legally consent to having sex. “She is a child,” the judge responded. Sammartino gets credit for 142 days already spent in the Mahoning County jail awaiting trial.