He raped a woman while waiting to be sentenced for a previous rape.
On Monday, Avery Schwartz was ordered to spend eight years in prison consecutive to the five-year sentence he already received.
Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Lindsay Navarre said Schwartz clearly had “some kind of a serious disconnect” in his head that would allow him to commit two rapes in such a short period of time.
“This disconnect, this lack of comprehension regarding consent and privacy, your inability to control such predatory impulses makes you incredibly dangerous not just to the women in our community but to our community as a whole,” Judge Navarre told him.
Schwartz, 21, of Rossford pleaded guilty to rape, a first-degree felony, for a May 4 attack on a 21-year-old woman who had been his friend. The victim was in court but did not make a public statement.
“I am truly sorry for my actions, for what I did,” Schwartz said. “I really didn’t mean to harm you. You were my first love and my best friend.”
He committed the offense after pleading no contest to rape March 20 before Judge James Bates. Judge Bates allowed him to get out of jail on a $100,000 bond before sentencing, which the court postponed until June so that he could attend his brother’s graduation.
Instead, Schwartz was arrested May 5 on a new charge of rape.
Frank Spryszak, an assistant county prosecutor, said the victim actually had written a letter to Judge Bates in support of Schwartz before he was sentenced for the first rape.
In that case, he raped a 21-year-old woman he was on a second date with Sept. 6.
Mr. Spryszak said the second victim trusted Schwartz enough that she went to sleep at her home believing he would either let himself out or sleep on the couch. Instead, she awoke to find him raping her.
“I don’t know what drove Mr. Schwartz to do this,” Mr. Spryszak said. “All I can say is I hope he makes productive use of his time and figures out what demons he has going on inside him and figures out a way to handle that.”
Defense attorney Stevin Groth told the court his client was “not a monster or an animal. ... He is someone who has made two catastrophic errors in judgments.”
Judge Navarre told Schwartz he was lucky to receive an agreed-upon sentence of eight years because if he had been convicted at trial, she most likely would have imposed the maximum term of 11 years in prison. She also ordered him to register as a sex offender with the county sheriff every 90 days for the rest of his life.
Contact Jennifer Feehan at jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.
First Published July 30, 2018, 8:20 p.m.
