Staff photo / Ed Runyan Defense attorney Lou DeFabio, right, makes a point to Judge Anthony D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Thursday during a hearing leading up to Monday’s aggravated murder trial of defendant Brandon Crump Jr., 21, left.

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Anthony D’Apolito ruled Friday that the testimony from a now-deceased witness to the killing of Rowan Sweeney, 4, cannot be admitted into evidence at the Brandon Crump Jr. trial that begins Monday.

The attorneys in the case exchanged filings this week, then made oral arguments Thursday before Judge D’Apolito after attorney Lou DeFabio, who represents Crump, 21, asked for the evidence to be prohibited.

DeFabio said the testimony Yarnell Green Jr., 32, gave Feb. 5, 2021, during a hearing in Mahoning County Juvenile Court was in regard to aggravated robbery, the charge Crump faced at the time, not the aggravated murder and multiple counts of attempted murder Crump faces now.

Crump was in juvenile court at the time because he was 17 at the time of the crimes.

And because the charges were much different in 2021 than they are now, Crump’s defense attorney at the time, Jeff Kurz, “did not have a similar motive in cross examining Green” that DeFabio would have now if DeFabio were able to question Green, DeFabio argued.

Prosecutors disagreed that the evidence should be suppressed, but D’Apolito ruled in favor of DeFabio’s motion.

Green was shot to death outside of a downtown Youngstown tavern Sept. 18, 2022, and Johnny Serrano Jr., 24, was convicted at trial last October in the killing.

Prosecutors said they would move forward with the prosecution of Crump and two other defendants, though they could not comment any further because of a gag order imposed in the case.

But Green was one of four adults who were in the home on Perry Street in Struthers at the time Rowan was killed. All four adults suffered gunshot wounds but survived. The remaining three are expected to testify.

Authorities have mentioned other types of evidence that they have obtained during the investigation.