Patrick A. Gaitor-Shabazz, right, listens to his attorney, Mark Lavelle, at the end of Gaitor-Shabazz’s plea and sentencing hearing Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Gaitor-Shabazz got a three-year prison sentence for stabbing another man at a group home on Youngstown’s North Side on Sept. 20, 2023, where both men lived.

YOUNGSTOWN — Patrick A. Gaitor-Shabazz, 51, was sentenced to three years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to attempted felonious assault for a Sept. 20, 2023, incident in which he stabbed another man at the group home where they both lived on Illinois Avenue on the North Side.

Gaitor-Shabazz received credit for 447 days already spent in the Mahoning County jail that can be applied to offset his prison sentence. He has been in the Mahoning County jail since the day of the incident, according to jail records.

When police arrived at the group home, they found the victim, 63, who also lived in the home, on a gurney being attended to by ambulance personnel, according to a police report. He had a stab wound to his abdomen.

Paramedics said the wound came from a sharp object. An officer observed a 3-inch stab wound on the victim, who was taken to the hospital and was in stable condition later.

According to the report, a staff member at the boarding home helped police locate Gaitor-Shabazz on a back deck, and Gaitor-Shabazz was taken into custody. A police officer observed blood on a blanket and blood drops leading to the back of the building.

While Gaitor-Shabazz’s case was pending in Youngstown Municipal Court, an evaluation was done to determine if he was competent to stand trial, and he was, according to prosecutors.

But during the hearing Monday, Gaitor-Shabazz’s attorney, Mark Lavelle, advised Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Anthony D’Apolito, who oversaw the case, that Gaitor-Shabazz has a long history of “diagnosed mental illness, and most recently was diagnosed with schizophrenia.” Lavelle said he will monitor Gaitor-Shabazz while he is in prison and “come back to you” if his client “is being neglected, and I am going to ask you to consider a release and potentially some sort of treatment.”

Lavelle said Gaitor-Shabazz asked if he could go to the state mental hospital in Massillon, but Lavelle said that was not an option, but the state prison system “should have some significant treatment for a man like him. If they don’t, then judge, I’m going to come knocking on your door.”

The three-year sentence was the maximum D’Apolito could give on the third-degree felony. The sentence was jointly recommended by the prosecution and defense.

The judge said this was a topic that was covered at a recent judge’s conference — that there is a “vehicle that people incarcerated can be transferred to (a state mental hospital) to get services,” but he said he doesn’t know a lot about it yet.

When Gaitor-Shabazz was asked if he wanted to say anything, he quietly said no.

Steve Maszczak, assistant county prosecutor, told the judge he has tried to contact the victim in the case, but he was not successful.