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LISBON -- The former hospital chaplain sentenced to 25 to 27 years in prison for downloading, printing and possessing 12,000-plus images of children engaged in sex acts is appealing his plea and sentence.
Sabella, 38, formerly of Beloit with a current address in Youngstown, entered a guilty plea in May and was sentenced in July for six counts of second-degree felony pandering obscenity involving a minor or impaired person and 50 counts of fourth-degree felony pandering obscenity involving a minor or impaired person.
During his sentencing, he apologized to the many unknown child victims portrayed engaging in sex acts in his expansive collection of images and videos, saying he understood that requires prison time. He apologized to his family and friends and anyone he ministered to as chaplain at Alliance City Hospital.
But this week, attorney Ed Czopur of Youngstown filed the appeal with the Seventh District Court of Appeals on Sabella's behalf of the plea and finding of guilty and the sentence.
As part of the plea deal, four second-degree felony counts of pandering and 15 fourth-degree felony counts of pandering were to be dismissed.
Bickerton followed the recommendation of county Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Bonish for the sentence: four to six years each for the six second-degree felony pandering counts, to be served consecutively with each other, for a total of 24 years, plus an additional one year for the 50 fourth-degree felony pandering counts being served concurrently, bringing the grand total to 25 years that Sabella must serve.
If the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections deems it necessary, another two years could be added to bring the maximum possible total to 27 years. He received credit for two days served in jail. He was also designated a Tier II sex offender requiring registration every 180 days for 25 years.
In the summary of probable issues for review, Czopus listed the following: guilty plea was not knowingly, intelligently or voluntarily made and the sentence was contrary to law.
During the sentencing, Bonish explained that Sabella uploaded and published a video, which a court affidavit said was a child being sexually assaulted by an adult male, and Microsoft flagged the video and notified the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in April 2025, which generated a cyber tip sent to East Palestine Police Detective Dan Haueter, who's an agent of the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force.
A search warrant was executed on July 2, 2025 at Sabella's Beloit home. Up in the ceiling of the garage, agents located a bookbag which contained images printed on regular paper and some on photo quality paper, even some images ripped out of magazines. They seized electronic devices, including three external hard drives and a computer and they all contained images of child pornography. They were organized in a series of folders. He even had a Lolita catalog from the 1970s that he scanned into his computer so he would have an electronic image.