News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Zanesville Woman Found Guilty of Thirty-Four Counts following Jury Trial

Jurors met in the Muskingum County Court of Common Pleas for two days last week to hear the case of Kendra Largent, 36, of Zanesville who stood accused of stealing the wallet of a Zanesville shopper.

Largent, represented by Columbus attorney Elizabeth Gaba, was found guilty of all thirty-four charges submitted to the jury.

Largent’s charges include seventeen counts of Theft and seventeen counts for Receiving Stolen Property.

The case began when Largent came upon the wallet of her victim at a local store. Instead of turning the wallet into the lost and found, Largent kept the wallet for herself. When she got into her vehicle with the wallet, each passenger in the car told her to return it and that she should not take the property.

Kendra Largent refused and instead made off with multiple credit cards and other property in the wallet.

When the victim realized that her wallet was missing, she called and immediately returned to the store where she used it last. The store reviewed security footage which showed Kendra Largent using the same cart the victim used prior to leaving the store. Later, detectives interviewed Largent. During her interview, she told detectives that she still had the wallet. Detectives then recovered the wallet directly from Kendra Largent.

Jurors deliberated over lunch, individually signing thirty-four verdict forms, one form for each count.

The fact that Largent’s case was extremely straightforward does not take away from the jury’s role in our court system of coming to a just verdict. All people charged with a crime have the right to have their case heard by a jury of their peers. At the same time, all people who are caught committing crimes have the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions and plead guilty.

The only question which exists in Largent’s case is one of merger. In our legal system, many times a person can commit one act which violates multiple laws. Competent prosecution requires that the person be charged with every different law that they broke, so that they cannot go to trial on one felony and get on the stand and admit to another, uncharged felony, to get away with their crime.

At the same time, a person cannot be punished over and over again for the same criminal act. Merger is a legal process where a Judge decides what crimes join or merge together because they are essentially the same criminal act, and they do not have different levels of victimization. After the Judge makes the decision about counts that merge, the State gets to choose which of those merged counts will proceed forward for sentencing.

Largent refused to take responsibility and repeatedly attempted to get witnesses in her case to lie on her behalf, stole someone’s property and has a lengthy record of felony crimes. All of those factors will be taken into account at her sentencing on a later date.

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