Defense attorney Lou DeFabio gestures toward a video monitor during the February 2024 aggravated murder trial of Brandon Crump Jr. in the 2020 shooting death of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney. Three Mahoning County assistant prosecutors are seen behind DeFabio.

YOUNGSTOWN — What is the cost of justice?

In the 2020 murder of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney, one of the costs — the money paid to attorneys and expert witnesses for two of the killers — is now at $147,822.

That bill is paid by taxpayer money from various sources.

Three men were sentenced to life in prison for their role in Rowan’s murder and the shootings of several adults in a home in Struthers early Sept. 21, 2020. They are Brandon Crump Jr., 22, Kimonie Bryant, 28, and Andre McCoy Jr., 24, all of Youngstown.

In March of 2024, shortly after Crump was convicted at trial of aggravated murder and other offenses in Rowan’s death, The Vindicator added up the amounts paid at that point and reported that it was $100,850, based on court records. Another $46,972 has been paid since then.

The $147,822 represents the amount paid to two lawyers and one expert witness for Crump and for two lawyers and three expert witnesses for defendant Kimonie Bryant. Most of the cost was for Bryant, who was facing the possibility of the death penalty within two weeks of the killing and shootings and was described as the shooter.

Crump, who was 17 at the time of the crimes, was implicated publicly for his role in the killing about three months later and was indicted on aggravated murder and other charges a couple of months after that. Crump was never thought to be in danger of getting the death penalty because Ohio law does not permit use of the death penalty for individuals who commit murder as a juvenile.

Defense costs are much higher for a person facing the possibility of the death penalty. Two defense lawyers are required for such a defendant, partly because of the need to file more motions, such as ones questioning the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Since the March 2024 Vindicator story, additional legal fees have been paid to the attorneys for Crump and Bryant, and the final bill arrived Monday for an expert witness for Crump, Dr. Jennifer Alpert of Forum Ohio of Columbus.

Alpert’s bill was $6,663 for conducting a review of the records related to Crump’s childhood, including records from Youngstown City Schools, Mahoning County Children Services and the Mahoning County Juvenile Court.

Crump’s attorney, Lou DeFabio, asked in a 2024 filing for Judge Anthony D’Apolito to allow DeFabio to hire Alpert, stating that “In a series of Ohio cases, courts have made clear that a trial court must separately consider the youth of a juvenile offender as a mitigating factor before imposing a sentence.”

DeFabio cited an Ohio law that required the judge to consider “the chronological age of the offender at the time of the offense and that age’s hallmark features, including intellectual capacity, immaturity, impetuosity and a failure to appreciate risks and consequences.”

At Crump’s sentencing hearing, DeFabio spoke about Dr. Alpert’s findings, saying, “I’ve been doing this for 32 years. I’ve never read a report like this. I’ve never looked at thousands of pages of CSB records that start off when this defendant was 2 months old, born marijuana addicted because his mother was smoking weed.”

Crump went to live with his grandmother because Crump’s father “disappears from Brandon’s life early on,” DeFabio said. Crump’s mother “pawned Brandon off on any number of people throughout his life, such that by the time he is 11, he is living on the streets,” DeFabio said.

His mother used him to “steal food to feed the family or sell a gun to a guy, which ended up in him getting shot during the gun sale,” DeFabio said.

The other fees that were paid since the March 2024 story are the legal fees paid to DeFabio — $22,095 for his representation of Crump, including Crump’s trial, which began Feb 5 with jury selection and ended with Crump’s conviction on all 16 charges Feb. 15. DeFabio had previously been paid $10,025. So his total is $32,120.

Also paid recently were attorneys John Juhasz and Lynn Maro (now Mahoning County prosecutor), the attorneys for Bryant. Juhasz was paid an additional $9,310, added to the $38,962 he was paid earlier for a total of $48,272. Maro was paid an additional $8,904, added to the $24,800 she was paid earlier for a total of $33,704.

In addition to that, the $6,663 to Crump’s expert witness, Alpert, totals an additional $46,972 since the March 2024 story. That amount added to the $100,850 reported in the March story totals $147,822.

There are no records of the costs for defendant Andre McCoy Jr. because he paid for his own lawyer, whereas the public paid for legal services for Crump and Bryant because they were deemed too poor to pay for their own.

Many other costs could be considered, in addition to the $147,822, such as salaries for assistant prosecutors and other prosecutorial staff for their work on the case; salaries for court personnel, such as D’Apolito and his staff; court reporters taking down everything said at hearings, the trial and providing transcripts for various reasons, such as appeals; juror fees and costs; deputies providing court security; and the salaries of Struthers police officers and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents investigating the case and testifying at the trial.

Additional bills will be submitted by attorney Rhys Cartwright-Jones to handle Crump’s appeal of his convictions and sentence, which is 52 years to life in prison. Cartwright-Jones has a deadline this month to file his merit brief, which lays out the specific errors or omissions he believes took place in Crump’s trial and sentencing.

DeFabio said he was surprised when he discovered that his total bill was $32,120 and not higher than that. A second lawyer who worked on the Crump case early on, Ed Hartwig, was paid $9,912 earlier and was not required after Crump was indicted a second time because the death penalty was formally removed from Crump’s charges at that time.

DeFabio noted that he was paid $125 per hour when Crump was initially indicted on a capital offense, meaning he was eligible for the death penalty. DeFabio’s hourly rate dropped to $75 after the possibility of the death penalty was formally removed. Hartwig made $125 per hour while he was part of the Crump case.

DeFabio said one of the things that made the defense costs in the case as high as they are is the amount of evidence that was created and provided to the defense, especially evidence provided by Ohio BCI agents as a result of analysis of cellphone messages, calls and locational data and the scientific analysis of evidence such guns, bullets and blood.

“If you would have printed all of that stuff out, which I didn’t because that would have been stupid, it probably would have been 15 banker’s boxes. As it was, I got like six banker’s boxes,” DeFabio said.

“This was a technology case. They had DNA, they had shell casing testimony. There were a lot of forensic things. There were a ton of BCI agents. Every one of them generated multiple reports, multiple DVDs,” DeFabio said.

He said that type of evidence also takes time to review and understand.

“That’s not easy (evidence) because I’m not a scientist. You will be looking through these things and saying ‘What the heck is that?’ And you’ve got to go find out,” he said.

The only case prior to this one he was involved with that compares in terms of the amount of evidence was the murder trial of Columbus Jones, who was convicted in 2012 of killing Jamail Johnson at a large party on Indiana Avenue on Youngstown’s North Side on Feb. 6, 2011.

Ten other people were injured after more than 20 bullets were fired from two guns. Jones is serving a 90 years to life sentence on murder and 10 counts of felonious assault.

“That case was similar in that it had a lot of witnesses, a ton of publicity,” DeFabio said. DeFabio said being a lawyer in a high-profile murder case today requires a lawyer to spend more time reviewing evidence than in the past.

DeFabio called the amount of evidence he had to review for the Crump case “overwhelming.”

He noted that with Crump, there was an additional step involved than when the defendant is an adult. That step was obtaining juvenile records and having Alpert review them and provide a report so that DeFabio could present information about the challenges Crump faced growing up.

“That was almost like a separate proceeding,” DeFabio said. “We get this 60-page expert opinion report. There were literally over 1,000 pages of school records, juvenile records, Children’s Service records. It was insanity,” he said.

He noted that because this was a high-profile case, the Struthers Police Department had to follow every angle that came their way, even if it was a long shot to have any bearing on the case.

“As a lawyer, you still have to read through it, as do the prosecutors,” DeFabio said. “God knows how much time they spent, and they had three of them,” he said.

He said there are other types of criminal cases that pay better because they take less time, such as DUI cases.

He said he could handle 14 DUI cases that would take about 42 hours of his time, counting time in court and outside of court, and make about $35,000. He made about $32,000 on the Crump case over more than three years, including a lengthy trial.

He said the one thing that reduced defense costs and time in the Crump case was that Crump never truly faced the death penalty, so many of the filings that were filed by Bryant’s attorneys were not necessary in the Crump case.