ATHENS COUNTY, Ohio — An Athens County man was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison Thursday after being found guilty on multiple charges, including murder.
Justin Pennington, 37, was sentenced in Athens County Common Please Court to 27 years and 11 months to life after beating a man to death and assaulting another person in 2021, according to the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office.
A jury found him guilty of murder, involuntary manslaughter, breaking and entering and felonious assault on May 5 after a four-day trial. The verdict stemmed from the death of Blaine Sharpe in June 2021.
In addition to those charges, Pennington was also found guilty of assaulting a woman.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Pennington went to Sharpe’s home in Lodi Township and brutally assaulted him. A report from the Athens County Sheriff’s Office says that Pennington then walked to Sharpe’s daughter’s home where he told her that he “just beat the pulp out of her father, he is laying on the porch and she better go check on him.”
When medics responded to Sharpe’s home, they found him unresponsive with visible injuries. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died.
Pennington then assaulted a woman with an aluminum baseball bat on Fossil Rock Road less than an hour later, a release from the prosecutor’s office said.
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