YOUNGSTOWN — Leonard Sykes, 51, of Youngstown, was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison Tuesday for raping a girl multiple times in August and September of 2022 when she was 12.

Mahon-ing County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Donofrio called Sykes’ actions with the girl “pathetic. It’s disgusting; it is repulsive” and said sending obscene images of himself and “coaxing her to send him partially nude pictures of her body to him is sickening and nauseating.”

The November trial was unusual in that Sykes opted to have Donofrio decide Sykes’ guilt or innocence instead of a jury. It’s called a bench trial. During the trial, the victim testified that she did tell police in 2022 that she had sex with Sykes after officers found her in Sykes’ apartment, but testified that those statements are not true.

“You told them that happened pretty much every single day,” Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Caitlyn Andrews asked of sexual conduct with Sykes.

“Yes,” the girl answered.

“But you are saying that never happened?” Andrews asked.

“Yes,” the girl answered. Then she clarified that people made statements to her to not let Sykes go to jail.

“So you were scared because people said to you, ‘Don’t let him go to jail?'” Andrews asked.

“Yeah,” she said, adding that she “can’t control” whether Sykes goes to jail. “I’m not the judge. I can’t do anything about that.”

Donofrio found Sykes guilty of three counts of rape and single counts of importuning and disseminating material harmful to a juvenile, all felonies.

Andrews said Tuesday that the girl “was lost. She didn’t really have a home. She was living with various people. While she was there (at an apartment with Sykes), he took advantage of the fact that she had no one else. He provided her with a place to live. He provided her with food, and those were things she could not find elsewhere, and he knew that.”

Andrews asked the judge to give Sykes 30 years to life, but defense attorney Nick Brevetta asked for a sentence of 10 years to life.

Brevetta said Sykes should not get the worst punishment because “there was no violence used.” He added that the girl was “free to come and go as she pleased while she was using him for a place to stay while she did not want to be in the custody of her parents or Mahoning County Children Services.

“The testimony is such that asking for a sentence of 30 years to life … ensures that my client never gets out and will probably die in prison. Based on just the testimony of that girl, I think it is hard-pressed to find that this is the worst form of the offense,” Brevetta said.

The girl “behaved like she was overage, used him for her benefit,” Brevetta said, adding this case is not an “innocent vs. a monster. Has my client been found guilty? Yes. Is the victim a naive child that was a babe in the woods who got lost? No.”

Brevetta said he would be filing an appeal of the judge’s decision and therefore, his client should not speak.

Donofrio said it does not matter “how mature” the girl was at 12 years old when Sykes met her. “That makes him a predator. He preyed on this young victim. He took advantage of her situation as a runaway. We know that. We’re talking about a 49-year-old man pursuing a 12-year-old girl, rape essentially. By law, what he did to her was rape her.” The judge said, “You can’t blame her for her maturity at the age of 13.”

Sykes is now a tier 3 sex offender and will have to register his address with the sheriff in the place where he resides every 90 days for the rest of his life if he gets out of prison.