YOUNGSTOWN — Damian Cessna’s attorney called Cessna’s incarceration since being convicted at trial of a low-level felony in September “punitive” on Monday before Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney restored Cessna’s bond, as requested. Cessna remained in the county jail as of Monday afternoon.

Cessna was charged with felonious assault and other offenses after a Boardman police officer made a traffic stop on Cessna while Cessna was riding a bicycle at 1 a.m. July 13, 2021, on South Avenue in Boardman near Mathews Road and was in the wrong lane of travel with no lights on the bicycle while holding a baseball bat.

There was a confrontation between Cessna and Patrolman Evan Beil. Cessna allegedly charged the officer with a knife, and the officer shot Cessna multiple times.

Attorney Mark Lavelle said Cessna has no prior record and did not cause any trouble while free on bond for more than two years prior to his trial.

“This is punitive on the part of the prosecutor because he refuses to accept some offer of settlement and wants to have a trial,” Lavelle said, accusing prosecutors of trying to “squeeze him into some sort of plea that he has no desire to do.”

Cessna, 27, of Boardman, went on trial on the felonious assault charge, plus charges of obstructing official business and misdemeanor aggravated menacing with the jury finding him guilty of the two lower-level charges. The jury could not decide on felonious assault, so prosecutors decided to retry him next year.

Pat Fening, assistant county prosecutor, said Cessna has 291 days of jail credit, and Cessna could get up to a year in prison on the obstructing official business conviction and asked Sweeney not to reinstate bond.

Fening noted that prosecutors offered to allow Cessna to plead guilty to a fourth-degree felony of assault with a recommendation from prosecutors for one year in prison, but Cessna rejected that.

Lavelle has argued that Cessna already has served most of the one year he could have gotten on the obstructing charge and should be able to leave jail until he is retried.

Lavelle said he supposes the “thinking” as to why Cessna was taken to jail after the conviction was “the potential that this case was going to resolve, that the felonious assault charge would then be negotiated down. That’s not the case,” Lavelle said.

After learning that Cessna was originally free on $15,000 bond, the judge reinstated the bond, requiring Cessna to be on electronically monitored house arrest.

Before Monday, Cessna was scheduled for trial April 7, but another case that was set for trial Jan. 6 — a rape case involving defendant Todd Perkins — needed to be postponed, so on Monday Cessna’s trial was moved up to Jan. 6, and Perkins’ trial was moved back to April 7.