Man from Berlin Center gets another two years of probation | News, sports, jobs

YOUNGSTOWN – Jamie Longnecker, 48, of Berlin Center, who has about 16 months left on his sentence, will serve an additional two years of supervision after he leaves prison for a federal probation violation, Judge Benita Y. Pearson ruled Tuesday in U.S. District Court .

Federal prosecutors filed a probation violation charge against Longnecker in March 2024, nine months after Mahoning County Judge Anthony D’Apolito sentenced Longnecker to three years in prison in July 2023 on two counts of menacing stalking.

The threatened charge involved committing offenses against dozens of people, including police officers who were investigating him. The offenses date back to 2017. His victims were mainly relatives or friends of a young waitress at a restaurant in central Berlin where Longnecker once worked, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Cardinal has said Longnecker composed and mailed envelopes containing “highly suggestive sexual references to a young girl, and he mailed them to her family members, extended family members, friends, acquaintances and institutions where she attended school.”

Speaking at Longnecker’s sentencing hearing, one of the victims said his daughter had no “problem with” Longnecker but “worked at the same place.” He said that when his mother died, Longnecker sent a copy of the obituary to his home with a swastika on it.

He told the judge that when Longnecker goes to prison, “you get a little bit of relief. It’s not over yet. We know it’s not over yet. You get some relief. If we get out of here and he’s back in front of a computer, everyone here is going to be a victim,” he said, gesturing around the room at lawyers, reporters and the judge. “That’s how he works.”

During Longnecker’s sentencing hearing Tuesday, Judge Pearson sentenced Longnecker to an additional eight months in prison, but she ordered it to be served concurrently with the three-year sentence, court records show. Longnecker pleaded guilty to two probation violations at Tuesday’s hearing, but an attempt to find out what the probation violations were Wednesday was unsuccessful.

The case that led to Longnecker being placed on probation in federal court was a 2021 conviction for felon in possession of a firearm.

An affidavit in support of the gun crime in federal court states the charges were filed after investigators from the Mahoning Valley Violent Crimes Task Force went to his home on September 15, 2020, with a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court search warrant and three firearms under a couch in the living room.

He was not allowed to possess them because he had previously been convicted of menacing by stalking and assault, the affidavit said.

Mahoning County Judge Maureen Sweeney sentenced Longnecker to three years in prison in August 2012 after Longnecker pleaded guilty to one count of assault and one count of menacing by stalking for conduct nearly identical to his current charge.