YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Sentencing will be Nov. 15 in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for two men who pleaded guilty to the 2021 torture and kidnapping of a woman on the South Side.
Farren McClendon, 44, pleaded guilty Tuesday before Judge John Durkin to charges of abduction and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Janarvis Roberts, 27, pleaded guilty the same day to charges of kidnapping and assault.
The pleas came just before jury selection was to begin in their trial.
McClendon and Roberts are accused of taking a woman from a vacant home on East Judson Avenue on Sept. 20, 2021, to a remote area of the East Side, where she was beaten and left. The woman managed to find a home and call for help.
Court records said the victim told police she was abducted by four men, two of them McClendon and co-defendant Janarvis Roberts, 27, driven to Roberts’ home and tortured for several hours with a large hot knife, had boiling water poured on her, had bleach poured over her wounds, was hit, kicked and punched and gagged with a rag that had been dipped in feces.
She told police she was driven to an area on the Sharon Line of the East Side near Warwick Avenue, and the men talked of killing her. She remembers nothing after losing consciousness but walked to a nearby home and called for help, the motion said.
Detectives served two search warrants at homes in the 500 block of Cambridge Avenue and the 100 block of East Judson Avenue as part of their investigation. They found two guns at the East Judson Avenue address.
McClendon has a previous conviction in 2005 in federal court on a firearms offense that prohibits him from having or being around a gun.
McClendon was also charged in federal court with being a felon in possession of a firearm after a warrant was served in the case and a gun was found in his home. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in July to 32 months in federal prison.
