Parma man who beat 5-year-old son to death with baseball bat avoids death penalty

CLEVELAND — A Parma man was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for beating his 5-year-old son to death with a baseball bat during what he said was a psychotic episode.

Matthew Ponomarenko pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, kidnapping and endangering children in the March 25, 2021, slaying of Jax Ponomarenko.

Prosecutors agreed to drop charges that would have made Ponomarenko eligible to face the death penalty if convicted.

Visiting Judge Timothy J. McGinty accepted the plea Thursday and imposed a sentence of life with first chance at parole after Ponomarenko spends 45 years in prison.

“Matthew Ponomarenko brutally beat and killed his own son,” Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said. “With this sentence, I hope that the family can find a modicum of peace and solace. May Jax’s memory forever live in their hearts.”

Ponomarenko, 34, has been held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on a $5 million bond since a grand jury first indicted him in April 2021.

Parma police arrested Ponomarenko the day of the killing. Ponomarenko called police to his home and told a dispatcher that he struck his son with a baseball bat while hearing voices, according to the 911 call.

Officers went to the home and found Jax lying on the living room floor. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene. The Cuyahoga County medical examiner’s office determined Jax died of blunt force impacts to his head and ruled his death a homicide.

Ponomarenko had sought a hearing to determine whether he suffered from a serious mental illness that, under a law passed the same month he was indicted, would render him ineligible for execution. A court-appointed psychiatrist found that Ponomarenko

suffered from bipolar disorder and that it significantly impaired his mental capacity.

Retired Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Janet Burnside earlier this year ruled that the new law did not require Ponomarenko to be evaluated against his will by an expert hired by the prosecutor’s office.

When McGinty was appointed to replace Burnside to oversee the case, prosecutors asked him to reconsider the ruling. McGinty made the same finding, and prosecutors appealed.

The 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals last month did not take up the appeal.