YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Two men who pleaded guilty to the torture of a city woman in 2021 were sentenced Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Farren McClendon, 44, was sentenced by Judge John Durkin to five years in prison on charges of abduction and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Janarvis Roberts, 27, was sentenced to five to seven and a half years in prison on charges of kidnapping and assault.
Both defendants apologized before they were sentenced.
McClendon and Roberts are accused of taking a woman Sept. 20, 2021, from a vacant East Judson Avenue home on the South Side to Roberts’ home on Cambridge Avenue, where she was tortured in the basement.
Assistant Prosecutor Joe Maxin called the basement a “torture chamber” and said the woman was bound to a pole with duct tape, beaten and burned with a machete that was heated by a homemade flamethrower.
At some point, Maxin said that McClendon convinced Roberts the woman had suffered enough and they dropped her off in a remote area of the East Side. The woman was able to get to a home and call 911 for help.
City police Detective Sgt. Jessica Shields, the lead investigator on the case, said Roberts and McClendon suspected the woman of taking part in a break-in at McClendon’s home the day before she was tortured.
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 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.
Judge Durkin said he accepted that both men were sorry for what they had done, but he said the circumstances of the case dictated that both men receive prison sentences.
The attorneys agreed on Roberts’ sentence in his case, while McClendon’s attorney had asked for a sentence of less than five years.
