A mother fiercely delivered a powerful five-word statement to her daughter’s kidnapper as she urged a judge to put him behind bars before he was sentenced.
William Mozingo, 34, pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to felony counts of kidnapping, abduction, felony assault and strangulation for kidnapping Chloe Jones in Kenmore, Ohio and holding her in a raised space in his garage in October 2023.
He also pleaded guilty to a separate charge from another case in which he escaped from a community correctional facility. WJW reports.
But before a judge sentenced him to prison, he heard statements from Jones and his mother Jessi Barham, who spoke directly to the cocky kidnapper in their comments.
“You don’t scare me, William,” Barham told her as he walked away from her.
Jessi Barham, the mother of a kidnapping victim, sent a harsh message to William Mozingo, 34, ahead of his sentencing Tuesday.
Mozingo pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to felony counts of kidnapping, abduction, felony assault and strangulation for the kidnapping of Chloe Jones in Kenmore, Ohio.
Jones was homeless when Mozingo approached her and promised her shelter in October 2023, the victim told Judge Susan Baker Ross on Tuesday. according to the Akron Beacon newspaper.
Instead, he tied her up and kept her without water for four days, repeatedly telling her she would never see her family again.
Mozingo doused her with gasoline and hit her repeatedly with a baseball bat, before Jones was eventually discovered battered and bruised by the garage owner, who notified police.
He also recorded more than 400 videos while holding Jones against his will, 10 of which were played in court Tuesday.
In the clips, Mozingo could be heard threatening Jones, demanding payment for the cigarettes and threatening to burn her alive.
“All I could think about was my son and that I would never see him again and that he would never come out alive,” Jones testified after the videos were played.
Summit County Deputy Prosecutor Jamila Mitchell said Jones suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken nose, a broken hand, bruising all over his body, swollen eyes and lasting mental trauma.
Barham also said her daughter was left paralyzed on the left side of her face, was in the intensive care unit for three days and can no longer retain any new information.
“You did this to my daughter, you did this to my daughter and you’re not a man, that’s not what a man does: a man protects women,” he said.
“You are evil, you are a villain and you should never be allowed to see the light of day again because you are a predator, you have a modus operandi and you have proven it time and time again,” Jones continued. And he adds: “My daughter will never be the same again.”
“She’s probably going to suffer a lot more than him, which isn’t fair.”
Chloe Jones was kidnapped in October 2023 when she was homeless and Mozingo promised her shelter
Barham went on to urge the judge to “protect every woman he could get his hands on” and keep him in prison “until he gets weak, until he wets his diapers.”
He noted that Mozingo had previously pleaded guilty in four other cases involving kidnapping or kidnapping.
He was first jailed for kidnapping in 2011 and was on parole for other kidnapping offenses when he attacked both Mastin and Jones.
In 2014, he was sentenced to nine months for kidnapping and was arrested again in 2017 for holding a woman at knifepoint in a Walmart bathroom.
Jailed for 18 months following the attack on Mastin, he was released in December 2018.
Four months later, he was arrested for imprisoning a 29-year-old ex-girlfriend in his Canton home, beating her, strangling her and holding a knife to her throat.
Four days later she was found unconscious, severely beaten and half-naked on a nearby road, before being rushed to hospital with a serious head injury.
Stark County Court sentenced him to another 18 months and he was released on parole before his last recorded attack.
Additionally, Mozingo pleaded guilty to felony assault in an unrelated 2020 case and was sentenced to six months in jail for drug possession, and was already on the state’s violent crimes registry.
Mozingo claimed he was under the influence of drugs when he kidnapped Jones and asked for leniency Tuesday.
“The fact of the matter is this man should not have gotten out,” Barham said, telling the judge, “You have the opportunity to do what no other judge has done.”
But Mozingo claimed he was under the influence of drugs when he kidnapped Jones, and asked for leniency.
“I would like to say that this incident occurred when we were high on methamphetamines,” he said.
“I have had a lot of time to think and reflect and I would like to apologize to the victim and family.”
Still, Baker ended up sentencing Mozingo to between 25 and 31½ years behind bars.
“The conduct here is extreme,” he said when handing down the sentence. ‘I think he should receive extreme punishment.
“The pain and damage you caused the victim will never go away from them.”
Summit County Prosecutor Elliot Kolkovich praised the sentence after the hearing.
“William Mozingo’s criminal record has shown that the streets are safer when he is behind bars,” Kolkovich said in a statement.
“We are grateful that the victim survived this horrible crime and we hope that this sentence allows him to have peace to begin to move on from this terrible crime.”
If Mozingo is to be released from prison, he will have to register with the county sheriff every year for 10 years.