A months-long Mahoning Matters investigation into cases with which Dawn Cantalamessa was involved uncovered several times over the past several years that conduct in the county prosecutors office was called into question by defense attorneys and judges during criminal cases.
YOUNGSTOWN Arturo Novoa, sentenced to 48 years to life in prison in 2019 for murdering his girlfriend, Shannon Graves, 29, then mutilating and hiding her body, is asking for his convictions to be overturned.
A lawyer with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, however, responded to the appeal by saying Novoa’s case “presents some of the most gruesome and horrific details in Mahoning County and perhaps Ohio’s history.”
Novoa’s attorney, Lou DeFabio, argued in a filing with the 7th District Court of Appeals that when Novoa, now 34, entered his guilty plea to murder and 42 other charges, it wasn’t “knowing, intelligent and voluntary” because Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court did not make Novoa aware of the maximum penalty he faced.