Published: Saturday, April 14, 2007
Man who threatened to kill judge and his wife is released
The threats came in collect calls from jail to the judge's home.
YOUNGSTOWN — A man who threatened to kill Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge R. Scott Krichbaum and his wife, Sharon, has been freed after serving seven months in the Belmont Correctional Institution.
Kenneth Favors, 52, of West Delason Avenue, was granted judicial release Friday by Visiting Judge Thomas P. Curran, who noted Favors' good behavior in prison and put him on five years' probation.
When Favors pleaded guilty to one count each of intimidation and retaliation Sept. 5, Judge Curran sentenced him to a four-year prison term, but said he could be released after six months and put on five years' probation if he behaved well in prison.
Judge Curran ordered Favors to refrain from use of alcohol or illegal drugs and to have no contact with Judge Krichbaum or his family.
Favors was charged with making two threatening collect telephone calls to Judge Krichbaum's home in April 2005 while he was in Mahoning County Jail on a breaking and entering charge. The judge's wife answered the phone both times.
Not indicted
Favors was never indicted on the breaking and entering charge because the witnesses, who were renting the home Favors was accused of breaking into, could not be located to testify before a grand jury.
Timothy Franken, chief trial lawyer in the county prosecutor's office, said he thinks Favors made the threats because Judge Krichbaum had sent him to prison before, and he feared Judge Krichbaum would order him imprisoned again.
"I didn't like it then and I don't like it now," Judge Krichbaum said of the September plea agreement, under which the prosecution dropped two counts of telecommunications harassment and agreed to the early judicial release for good behavior.
Judge Krichbaum, added, however, "That's the deal that was made, and my wife and I have to live with that."
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