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April 2009
Waynesville man indicted in alleged mortgage scheme
DAYTON — A Waynesville man accused of running a mortgage fraud scheme was indicted Wednesday, April 29, on federal charges, including a single count of money laundering.
The grand jury also indicted Gregory S. Chew, 41, on 24 counts of illegally structuring currency transactions.
Chew, who did business under the names RB, Inc. and Raging Bull Enterprises, recruited investors to buy and sell real estate in the Dayton area using inflated property appraisals and false promises, according to court documents.
As part of the scheme, lenders were given fraudulent financial information. After Chew obtained mortgages at inflated property values, the money was put to personal use. The indictment alleges that Chew deposited proceeds from fraudulent mortgage loans into his own bank accounts between March 25, 2005 and December 4, 2007.
Count one of the indictment alleges that Chew laundered the proceeds from the unlawful criminal activity by purchasing items for his own personal use. Counts two through 25 allege that Chew structured $213,630.02 in 24 separate deposits into his bank accounts by breaking large deposits into smaller ones in an effort to evade IRS cash transaction reporting requirements.
The indictment seeks forfeiture of a $26,000 motorcycle Chew purchased with proceeds of the crime, and a money judgment in the amount of the structured deposits.
Gregory G. Lockhart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, commended the joint investigation by the members of the Greater Dayton Mortgage Fraud Task Force, including the FBI, the IRS, the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Financial Institutions, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General, and the Perry Township Police Department.
Mom whose child breathed in crack cocaine fumes gets probation
DAYTON — A woman arrested after drugs were found in her 2-year-old son’s system was sentenced to five years probation on Tuesday, April 28.
Carissa Lee Hankey, 23, pleaded guilty Tuesday, April 7, to felony counts of crack cocaine possession and heroin possession, as well as a misdemeanor count of child endangering. Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances McGee sentenced Hankey to 90 days in jail but suspended that sentence.
Hankey and her son were taken to an area hospital on Jan. 14, after they were involved in an automobile accident in the 4300 block of Burkhardt Ave., according to police.
At the hospital, Hankey and her son tested positive for the presence of cocaine, according to police.
Officers determined Hankey had been smoking crack cocaine and used two other drugs at a house while her son was in the room, according to police. Authorities said they don’t believe the child was actually given drugs, but inhaled the smoke.
Re-trial in aircraft safety inspector’s death continues
DAYTON — Testimony started Tuesday, April 28, in the re-trial of James A. Russell, as Montgomery County prosecutors called the prostitute who lured a 57-year-old federal aircraft safety inspector into the robbery attempt that led to his death.
Russell, 33, faced the possibility of life in prison until the Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed his 2006 murder conviction.
He is accused of killing Phillip Troutwine, of Arcanum, on Sept. 1, 2004, at the Auburn Avenue apartment he shared with Candace Hargrove. Troutwine’s decomposed body was found 24 days later in the trunk of his car, which was parked in West Carrollton. Authorities had been looking for the Arcanum man since Sept. 3, when his wife notified them of his failure to return home.
Troutwine came to the apartment expecting sex, but Hargrove, who did not feel like having sex, planned with Russell to rob him, she testified Tuesday.
Hargrove said that she had started a prostitution business using a telephone dating service, when Troutwine contacted her about a week before they were to meet at her apartment on the morning of Sept. 1.
Troutwine wanted to look around the apartment. “He looked nervous, like he was uncomfortable,” she said.
She was walking Troutwine through the apartment when Russell, hiding in a bedroom, surprised Troutwine and put a gun to his head and demanded money. The two were moved into the kitchen, Hargrove said.
“I heard tussling, and then I heard a gunshot,” Hargrove said. Then Russell told her “I didn’t mean to shoot him,” she said.
Hargrove also testified she helped Russell clean up the blood and move the body into the trunk of Troutwine’s car. The two then drove the car to a West Carrollton apartment complex, then they took a bus back to Dayton. They fled to Kentucky, then Detroit, then were arrested in Los Angeles on Oct. 25, 2004.
Hargrove, 24, who cooperated with authorities, pleaded guilty before the trial to charges of aggravated robbery, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse. She is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Earlier Tuesday, assistant Ohio public defender Theresa Haire told the jury that Russell was in Columbus at the time Troutwine was shot.
Haire was to cross examine Hargrove later Tuesday afternoon.
After Russell’s previous trial, Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael T. Hall said at sentencing that he imposed maximum consecutive sentences for the six felonies because Russell’s juvenile record showed he posed “the greatest likelihood of committing future crimes.”
As a juvenile, Russell served about five years in the Ohio Department of Youth Services system for his role in the 1991 fatal shooting of Connie Sue Trimble, 25.
The appeals court found that Hall erred when it overruled a motion for mistrial after it was discovered that a verdict form was mistakenly published to the jury. The potential impact of the improper inclusion of the verdict form could not be measured, and the probable speculation by the jury was prejudicial, tainting the case, according to the ruling.
Prosecutors argue against second competency exam for Charlie Myers
DAYTON — Montgomery County prosecutors have responded to Charlie Myers’ request for a second competency examination, arguing that he is capable of understanding court proceedings and that a second exam is not necessary.
The prosecutors’ memo was filed Thursday, April 23, one week after Myers’ defense attorneys asked for a second exam. The first one found that Myers is competent to stand trial.
Common Pleas Judge Dennis J. Langer told the attorneys last week that he would decide the issue by April 28.
Myers, 22, of Columbus, is accused of killing Harrison Twp. resident Jenny Nelson and kidnapping her son. If convicted of aggravated murder, he could face the death penalty.
The first evaluation of Myers was done at the Forensic Psychiatry Center for Western Ohio. Under Ohio law, a defendant is incompetent to stand trial if, because of his current mental condition, he cannot understand the court proceedings or assist in his defense. According to the motion filed by defense attorneys Dennis Lieberman and Michael Pentecost, Myers could not answer basic questions about how police found him, the role of the prosecutor, the role of the jury or the purpose of a trial.
Lieberman said after the brief hearing that the first exam found that Myers has a “verbal I.Q.” of 55. Myers is hearing impaired.
The memo filed Thursday by Prosecutor Mathias H. Heck, Jr. and assistant county prosecutors Tracey Ballard Tangeman and Kelly D. Madzey, argues that the lead doctor on the first exam met with Myers on four dates for a total of nine and a half hours. Sign language interpreters were there at all times, the memo says.
Prosecutors argued that though some defendants cannot articulate the meaning of legal terminology when asked an open-ended question, they can still understand an explanation when given one. During his confession to police three days after Nelson’s death, Myers was able to identify legal terms such as murder and burglary “without any assistance or leading questions from the interviewing detectives and long before he realized it might behoove him to feign ignorance for purposes of a competency evaluation,” the memo says.
The memo also quotes the report by Dr. Barbara Bergman that noted that though Myers had suffered significant hearing impairment after contracting meningitis at age five, he has average intelligence and “appears to be very resourceful at getting his needs and desires satisfied, with well-developed survival skills.”
Myers can communicate well with the help of interpreters, Bergman wrote.
“At times, Mr. Myers appeals to his deafness as a rationalization for his objectionable behavior, presenting himself as a victim or a ‘tragic figure’ and at other times, he appeals to his deafness to elicit sympathy and lenience or to divert attention from his antisocial behavior,” Bergman wrote.
Prosecutors also noted that as part of the first evaluation, a second forensic psychologist also evaluated Myers. That was Dr. Robert Stinson, who is a specialist with regard to the hearing impaired. Stinson found Myers did not suffer from any mental retardation.
“While the defense claims Dr. Stinson ‘specifically ignored’ the verbal subtest results, nothing could be further from the truth,” prosecutors wrote. “He did not ignore them; rather, he explained in great detail why they are simply not valid measures of the defendant’s cognitive abilities because they draw on skills that the hearing-impaired often do not have the ability to develop — namely, the English language and the verbal expression of it.”
A Montgomery County grand jury indicted Myers on Jan. 15, on eight counts of aggravated murder, including death penalty specifications. In total, the grand jury approved 20 felony counts against Myers in the death of Jenny Nelson, 29, and the kidnapping of her son on Jan. 2.
Myers was also indicted on four counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated burglary, two counts of aggravated robbery, one count of gross sexual imposition of a child under the age of 13, one count of receiving stolen property, one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle and one count of being a felon in possession of a weapon. All charges include firearms specifications.
Myers, 22, of Columbus, remains in the Montgomery County Jail in lieu of $5 million bond.
Investigators said Myers, armed with a shotgun, drove on Jan. 2 from Columbus in the Nelson family’s 1999 Honda Accord — reported stolen from an Ohio State University parking garage on Dec. 17.
Myers kicked open the front door of the Nelson home on Redder Avenue, where Nelson was cooking dinner. Her husband was at work at the time. Myers took Nelson and her son down into the basement, where he tied Nelson to a chair. He then took the boy upstairs and sexually assaulted him, according to prosecutors.
Nelson broke free from her restraints, grabbed a knife and stabbed Myers in the side, Heck said. Myers then shot Nelson twice with his shotgun, according to prosecutors.
Myers fled in a car, owned by a Nelson relative, with the boy, two computers and Nelson’s cell phone, investigators said.
Myers left the boy that night at a highway rest stop near the Madison and Clark County county line. The boy, who had no shoes and wasn’t wearing a coat, told a woman there that a man had shot his mother, and deputies found Nelson dead in her home, according to prosecutors.
Judge sets $1 million bond for Harold Barker
DAYTON — A judge set a $1 million bond on Tuesday, April 21, for a man indicted on charges of murder and felonious assault in the 2006 disappearance of a 38-year-old mother.
Harold Barker, 54, was indicted by a Montgomery County grand jury and arrested by Dayton police at 3:35 p.m. Friday, April 17, in the 2200 block of Wayne Avenue, according to police and county jail records. He appeared Tuesday before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances McGee. Barker also faces a felony charge of tampering with evidence.
Detectives believe Barker is responsible for the death of Shelly Sue Turner, who has been missing since 2006.
Her body has yet to be found, but Lt. Patrick Welsh said Monday that investigators are “confident” she is dead.
Man arrested after crash is released from jail
DAYTON — A man arrested after a car-truck accident which killed a Huber Heights woman has been released from the Montgomery County Jail.
Bryan Sacco, 18, of Orlando, Fla., was booked into the jail on Tuesday and released Friday, April 17. Though he was booked on a count of aggravated vehicular homicide, Montgomery County prosecutors have not yet approved any formal charges, said spokesman Greg Flannagan.
Any charge involving a death automatically goes through a three-prosecutor panel for review. No panel had been scheduled as of Friday, Flannagan said.
Sacco, who was driving a Roush special factory edition Ford Mustang GT with Florida license plates, crashed into a pickup truck about 3:15 p.m. at the intersection of southbound Brandt Pike (Ohio 201) and eastbound Executive Boulevard.
Michele A. Meade, who was driving the GMC Sonoma pickup, was ejected through the rear window, then pinned between the wreckage and a utility pole. She died instantly, police said.
Meade’s granddaughter, a passenger in the Sonoma, was not injured. Sacco and his female passenger suffered minor injuries, police said.
Man acquitted of rape charges in case involving UD student
DAYTON — A man charged with kidnapping and raping a former University of Dayton student was acquitted of all charges Friday, April 17, after a week-long trial.
The jury deliberated for nearly eight hours on Thursday and about three on Friday before finding Calilan J. Grant, 30, not guilty of four counts of rape and the kidnapping count.
The defense contended that Grant and the victim engaged in consensual sex. A relative of Grant’s testified Wednesday that the victim entered his house of her own will and agreed to have sex with Grant.
Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors presented Annette Davis from the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory, who testified that DNA from the rape kit matched a sample from Grant obtained in 2008. It was not specified how the sample was obtained.
The victim testified Monday that she identified Grant from a photo lineup days after the attack.
Also Tuesday, prosecutors read aloud the testimony of Dayton Detective Phil Olinger. The testimony came from a prior hearing in the case. Olinger died two weeks ago from cancer.
According to Olinger’s testimony, he spoke to Grant twice in September 2008, and Grant denied knowing the victim and said he had never been to the BW-3 restaurant on Brown Street.
Grant’s attorney, Kevin Lennen, told the jury Monday that the victim left the BW-3 with Grant and two of his friends and had consensual sex with Grant and one of the other men.
The victim has since graduated from UD and now lives in another state.
The victim, who was 20 at the time, met Grant late on April 5, 2005, at the BW3, when Grant and his two friends talked to her in the bar, the victim testified Monday.
According to her testimony:
As she was leaving the bar, the three men were in a sport utility vehicle and called out to her. When she got closer, Grant pulled her inside, then forced her to perform a sexual act on him. The men were smoking marijuana and Grant forced marijuana smoke into her lungs by pushing his face up against hers and blowing smoke into her mouth. He also forced her to drink an unknown liquid, she said.
She passed out. When she woke up, she was on a couch in an unknown place, and Grant was having sex with her. She passed out again, and woke up to find one of Grant’s friends having sex with her, she said.
Next, she woke up in the SUV and was near her home on the UD campus. On her request, she was dropped off. She walked home, passed out in her bed. After she woke up, she called a friend who took her to Miami Valley Hospital, she said.
The victim identified pictures taken of her at the hospital, including of bruises on her arm and her inner thigh.
During cross-examination by Lennen, the victim said she had between four and six beers earlier in the evening.
“I was intoxicated,” she said. “I wasn’t wasted.”
Lennen, who continues cross examining her Tuesday morning, questioned her about inconsistencies between her three statements to police, two from 2005 and one from last year.
Originally, the victim told police that all three men raped her in the SUV. She told Lennen she did not know why she said that, but that she was was traumatized at the time she gave her first statement.
The victim said that she has been in therapy and now remembers things differently.
“I truly believe that I was drugged,” the victim told Lennen.
She told Lennen she had no explanation for why she had bruises on her right arm, but not her left, after the incidents. She testified Monday that Grant pulled her into the car by her left arm.
Lennen asked her why she didn’t fight back after she was pulled into the car.
“I was petrified,” she answered.
Sex offender caught with child porn sentenced to 10 years
DAYTON — A longtime sex offender who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography in January was sentenced Friday, April 17, to 10 years in federal prison and lifetime supervision.
Sean T. Porter, 46, who appeared before U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Rose, was on parole after doing prison time when he began chatting online with “chrissy 13” in June 2007, thinking the person was a 13-year-old girl. The person was an undercover postal inspector, according to a statement of facts.
“Officers patrolling the Internet are as vital to our community’s safety as are officers patrolling the streets,” said Gregory G. Lockhart, U. S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. “Parents need to help their children understand the dangers they face on the Internet.”
Porter sent pornographic images of himself and $60 to “chrissy 13” so she could buy a webcam to send him pornographic images of herself.
In January 2008, agents found a computer containing as many as 25 images of child pornography in his home. Porter was prohibited from using a computer as a condition of his parole, resulting from a prior state court conviction for importuning, for which he served 12 months in prison and was designated a habitual sex offender.
Porter was also previously convicted on state charges of attempted sexual conduct with a minor and soliciting another via a telecommunication device.
“Too many individuals mistakenly believe the anonymity of cyberspace shields them from scrutiny,” said Brian Moskowitz, Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for Michigan and Ohio. “ICE remains committed to investigating this type of on-line activity to prevent the exploitation of children.”
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.projectsafechildhood.gov/ .
Lockhart commended the investigation by agents of the Postal Inspection Service and ICE, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Clemmens, who prosecuted the case.
Charlie Myers found competent to stand trial, but defense requests another examination
DAYTON — A mental examination shows Charlie Myers, accused of killing a Harrison Twp. woman and kidnapping her 4-year-old son, is competent to stand trial, but his attorneys have asked for a second evaluation.
At a hearing on Thursday, April 16, Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Dennis J. Langer said prosecutors would have until April 23 to file a response to the defense motion that was filed earlier Thursday. Langer will rule on the defense request by April 28.
The evaluation of Myers was done at the Forensic Psychiatry Center for Western Ohio. Under Ohio law, a defendant is incompetent to stand trial if, because of his current mental condition, he cannot understand the court proceedings or assist in his defense. According to the motion filed by defense attorneys Dennis Lieberman and Michael Pentecost, Myers could not answer basic questions about how police found him, the role of the prosecutor, the role of the jury or the purpose of a trial.
Lieberman said after the brief hearing that the first exam found that Myers has a “verbal I.Q.” of 55.
“We felt that this was was discounted,” Lieberman said. “A courtroom is all verbal.”
Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty against Myers. A Montgomery County grand jury indicted him Jan. 15, on eight counts of aggravated murder, including death penalty specifications. In total, The grand jury approved 20 felony counts against Myers in the death of Jenny Nelson, 29, and the kidnapping of her son on Jan. 2.
In addition to the aggravated murder counts, he was indicted on four counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated burglary, two counts of aggravated robbery, one count of gross sexual imposition of a child under the age of 13, one count of receiving stolen property, one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle and one count of being a felon in possession of a weapon. All charges include firearms specifications.
Myers, 22, of Columbus, remains in the Montgomery County Jail in lieu of $5 million bond. Myers is hearing-impaired, and Langer has ordered that a sign-language interpreter be present for Myers’ court dates and that Myers be fitted with new hearing aids.
Investigators said Myers, armed with a shotgun, drove on Jan. 2 from Columbus in the Nelson family’s 1999 Honda Accord — reported stolen from an Ohio State University parking garage on Dec. 17.
He had no prior relationship with Nelson’s family, according to Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer, who called it a “random crime.”
The Nelsons had changed their locks the day after the car was stolen, according to prosecutors.
Myers kicked open the front door of the Nelson home on Redder Avenue, where Nelson was cooking dinner. Her husband was at work at the time. Myers took Nelson and her son down into the basement, where he tied Nelson to a chair. He then took the boy upstairs and sexually assaulted him, according to prosecutors.
Nelson broke free from her restraints, grabbed a knife and stabbed Myers in the side, Heck said. Myers then shot Nelson twice with his shotgun, according to prosecutors.
Myers fled in a car, owned by a Nelson relative, with the boy, two computers and Nelson’s cell phone, investigators said.
Myers left the boy that night at a highway rest stop near the Madison and Clark County county line. The boy, who had no shoes and wasn’t wearing a coat, told a woman there that a man had shot his mother, and deputies found Nelson dead in her home, according to prosecutors.
The Oldsmobile Alero, Myers stole after the shooting, was found Jan. 4 in Columbus, the same day Myers was arrested.
FBI agents tracked Nelson’s cell phone number and determined her cell phone was used twice in Columbus after her death, according to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Franklin County Municipal Court. One of those calls, made the morning of Jan. 4, was made to Myers’ cell phone.
FBI agents and Franklin County sheriff’s detectives went to Myers’ apartment at 70 McMillen Ave. to determine who called him with the dead woman’s cell phone.
Suspect in mortgage fraud scheme pleads guilty to conspiracy charges
CINCINNATI — A Centerville man accused of participating in a mortgage fraud scheme that involved more than 200 area properties pleaded guilty to felony charges Tuesday, April 14, in U.S. District Court.
Kamal J. Gregory, 35, appeared before Judge Michael R. Barrett and pleaded guilty to to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Gregory committed the crimes in connection with an extensive scheme that involved 210 residential properties, including 205 located in Montgomery County, and affected 63 investors. The scheme led to foreclosure against owners of more than 90 percent of the properties, said Gregory G. Lockhart, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
Gregory was one of five Dayton-area residents indicted in June in connection with the scheme.
Gregory admitted that, between March 2002 and June 2008, he and several accomplices prepared and submitted mortgage loan applications to various lending institutions located across the country. Those loan applications included documents that made fraudulent claims involving the income of the borrowers and values of the properties involved, according to court documents.
Most of the homes involved were dilapidated and otherwise depressed properties located in the Dayton area. The loan application packages claimed the properties were worth prices which had been artificially inflated above legitimate fair-market values, according to court documents.
Gregory admitted during his plea hearing to participating in 46 separate fraudulent real estate closings between February 2003 and April 2005. The net fraudulent loan amounts associated with these closings exceeded $4.2 million, Lockhart said.
Gregory worked as a loan officer under company names including Alliance Mortgage, Gregory Investments Inc., KG Enterprises, Mad River Properties, Premier Mortgage Funding of Ohio, Star Point Mortgage, and Ohio Financial Group.
A federal grand jury indicted Gregory and five co-conspirators, Julian M. Hickman of East Cleveland; Robert Mitchell of Vandalia; Kenneth O. McGee of Dayton; Edward McGee of Dayton; and Jessica A. Zbacnik of Monroe. Hickman pleaded guilty Dec. 12 to conspiracy and tax crimes and Mitchell pleaded guilty March 11 to two conspiracy counts. Both are awaiting sentencing.
Charges against Zbacnik and the McGees are pending.
Conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering is punishable by up to 30 years and a $1,000,000 fine. Conspiracy to commit money laundering is punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment and a fine in the greater amount of $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved.
Prosecution rests in rape case involving former UD student
DAYTON — Assistant Montgomery County prosecutors rested their case Tuesday afternoon, April 14, against a man accused of kidnapping and raping of a University of Dayton student in 2005.
Calilan J. Grant, 30, has been indicted on four counts of rape and one count of kidnapping. Grant’s trial started Monday. The defense, which contends that Grant and the victim engaged in consensual sex, will start presenting witnesses Wednesday afternoon.
Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors presented Annette Davis from the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory, who testified that DNA from the rape kit matched a sample from Grant obtained in 2008. It was not specified how the sample was obtained.
The victim testified Monday that she identified Grant from a photo lineup days after the attack.
Also Tuesday, prosecutors read aloud the testimony of Dayton Detective Phil Olinger. The testimony came from a prior hearing in the case. Olinger died two weeks ago from cancer.
According to Olinger’s testimony, he spoke to Grant twice in September 2008, and Grant denied knowing the victim and said he had never been to the BW-3 restaurant on Brown Street.
Grant’s attorney, Kevin Lennen, told the jury Monday that the victim left the BW-3 with Grant and two of his friends and had consensual sex with Grant and one of the other men.
The victim has since graduated from UD and now lives in another state.
The victim, who was 20 at the time, met Grant late on April 5, 2005, at the BW3, when Grant and his two friends talked to her in the bar, the victim testified Monday.
As she was leaving the bar, the three men were in a sport utility vehicle and called out to her. When she got closer, Grant pulled her inside, then forced her to perform a sexual act on him. The men were smoking marijuana and Grant forced marijuana smoke into her lungs by pushing his face up against hers and blowing smoke into her mouth. He also forced her to drink an unknown liquid, she said.
She passed out. When she woke up, she was on a couch in an unknown place, and Grant was having sex with her. She passed out again, and woke up to find one of Grant’s friends having sex with her, she said.
Next, she woke up in the SUV and was near her home on the UD campus. On her request, she was dropped off. She walked home, passed out in her bed. After she woke up, she called a friend who took her to Miami Valley Hospital, she said.
The victim identified pictures taken of her at the hospital, including of bruises on her arm and her inner thigh.
During cross-examination by Lennen, the victim said she had between four and six beers earlier in the evening.
“I was intoxicated,” she said. “I wasn’t wasted.”
Lennen, who continues cross examining her Tuesday morning, questioned her about inconsistencies between her three statements to police, two from 2005 and one from last year.
Originally, the victim told police that all three men raped her in the SUV. She told Lennen she did not know why she said that, but that she was was traumatized at the time she gave her first statement.
The victim said that she has been in therapy and now remembers things differently.
“I truly believe that I was drugged,” the victim told Lennen.
She told Lennen she had no explanation for why she had bruises on her right arm, but not her left, after the incidents. She testified Monday that Grant pulled her into the car by her left arm.
Lennen asked her why she didn’t fight back after she was pulled into the car.
“I was petrified,” she answered.
Trial of man accused of raping former UD student continues
DAYTON — The trial of a man accused of the 2005 kidnapping and rape of a University of Dayton student continues Tuesday, April 14.
Calilan J. Grant, 30, has been indicted on four counts of rape and one count of kidnapping. Grant’s trial started Monday.
His attorney, Kevin Lennen, said that the victim left the BW-3 restaurant on Brown Street with Grant and two of his friends and had consensual sex with Grant and one of the other men.
The victim has since graduated from UD and now lives in another state.
The victim, who was 20 at the time, met Grant late on April 5, 2005, at the BW3. Grant and two friends talked to her in the bar, the victim testified Monday.
As she was leaving the bar, the three men were in a sport utility vehicle and called out to her. When she got closer, Grant pulled her inside, then forced her to perform a sexual act on him. The men were smoking marijuana and Grant forced marijuana smoke into her lungs by pushing his face up against hers and blowing smoke into her mouth. He also forced her to drink an unknown liquid, she said.
She passed out. When she woke up, she was on a couch in an unknown place, and Grant was having sex with her. She passed out again, and woke up to find one of Grant’s friends having sex with her, she said.
Next, she woke up in the SUV and was near her home on the UD campus. On her request, she was dropped off. She walked home, passed out in her bed. After she woke up, she called a friend who took her to Miami Valley Hospital, she said.
The victim identified pictures taken of her at the hospital, including of bruises on her arm and her inner thigh.
During cross-examination by Lennen, the victim said she had between four and six beers earlier in the evening.
“I was intoxicated,” she said. “I wasn’t wasted.”
Lennen, who continues cross examining her Tuesday morning, questioned her about inconsistencies between her three statements to police, two from 2005 and one from last year.
Originally, the victim told police that all three men raped her in the SUV. She told Lennen she did not know why she said that, but that she was was traumatized at the time she gave her first statement.
The victim said that she has been in therapy and now remembers things differently.
“I truly believe that I was drugged,” the victim told Lennen.
She told Lennen she had no explanation for why she had bruises on her right arm, but not her left, after the incidents. She testified Monday that Grant pulled her into the car by her left arm.
Lennen asked her why she didn’t fight back after she was pulled into the car.
“I was petrified,” she answered.
Attorney caught buying child pornography sentenced to four years in prison
DAYTON — A Centerville attorney convicted of possessing child pornography was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison Thursday, April 9.
Thomas A. Ballato, 40, who was arrested in September 2006, pleaded guilty Dec. 5, before U.S. District Senior Judge Walter H. Rice. The sentencing range in his plea agreement called for 48 to 96 months in prison and lifetime supervised release.
Under the sentence issued by Rice, Ballato must also perform 100 hours of community service and is not allowed to have unsupervised contact with children after his release. He will also be prohibited from unsupervised contact with his son while he is a minor unless the probation officer has a clearly expressed opinion from a mental health provider that the condition is no longer viable, and then only if approved by the court.
Ballato was accused of trying to buy four child-pornography magazines between August and September 2004, according to court documents.
According to the complaint, Ballato responded via e-mail to an ad by an undercover U.S. postal inspector.
He ordered the magazines, which contained sexually explicit pictures of children, some prepubescent, for $80. Some of the magazines contained images that portrayed sadistic and masochistic conduct.
The inspector told Ballato to cut the bills in half and send the half-bills to “Playground Video” in Kennedale, Texas. The other halves were to be sent after the magazines were received. The inspector got the first set of cut bills Sept. 16.
On Oct. 4, 2004, an inspector posing as a mail carrier delivered the magazines to Ballato’s home, 30A Country Manor Lane. A woman signed for the package, and agents executed a search warrant. Agents also searched Ballato’s office at Brannon and Associates.
The agents took two computers and an envelope.
According to the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to drop a count of receipt of child pornography. Under the agreement, Ballato agreed to forfeit the magazines a DVD, six CDs, eight VHS tapes, a notebook, a CD-R and two floppy discs.
Man convicted of sex crimes sentenced to prison
DAYTON — A man who was barred from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1995 for a sexual offense there with a minor was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday, April 9.
“I hope that through this, God will help me to become a better and stronger person,” Andrew J. Huff told Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Wiseman. He asked that he be allowed to take his Bible with him to prison, but Wiseman did not respond.
Huff pleaded no contest Feb. 27 to two counts of gross sexual imposition of a child younger than age 13. The two-year sentence was part of the plea agreement between prosecutors and Huff’s defense attorney.
Huff, 64, was indicted Aug 20 on three counts of gross sexual imposition and arrested the following day. He has been free in lieu of $100,000 bond, which Judge Dennis Langer continued after Huff’s no contest pleas.
The current charges involve a relative’s children. In May, police received a complaint that Huff had fondled the children, according to a Riverside police report.
Riverside police investigators found that Huff, who had retired from the U.S. Air Force, also had been accused in 1995 of making suggestive remarks and sexually touching a boy in a gym shower at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, based on military police reports.
In a written statement for base police, Huff said he had “a compulsion” and would start getting therapy. Huff was banned from the base in 1995 and allowed to return only for medical care. He pleaded guilty to a lesser offense of sexual imposition without consent in federal court in 1996 and to a count of trespassing for going back on base despite the ban. He was fined $200 for the sexual offense, $100 for trespassing, and placed on probation for two years. In 1998, he was charged in federal court again with trespassing on base again but the case was dismissed.
Huff volunteered at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force from April 2006 until until June 2008, when museum officials became aware of Riverside’s investigation. Base spokesman Derek Kaufman said last fall that museum officials were not previously aware Huff had been banned and he was immediately terminated as a volunteer. Kaufman said measures have since been taken to ensure that the museum is aware of debarment orders so no one is accepted as a volunteer after being banned from the base.
Huff told Riverside police during their investigation in May that he is HIV-positive and had slept with boys in Kentucky, according to Riverside police reports. A few days later, he denied that, saying the young men were 18 and it was only oral sex, according to the police reports.
Mother whose 2-year-old son tested positive for cocaine pleads guilty
DAYTON — A woman arrested after drugs were found in her 2-year-old son’s system pleaded guilty to all indicted counts this week and will be sentenced on April 21.
Carissa Lee Hankey, 23, pleaded guilty Tuesday, April 7, to felony counts of crack cocaine possession and heroin possession, as well as a misdemeanor count of child endangering.
Hankey and her son were taken to an area hospital on Jan. 14, after they were involved in an automobile accident in the 4300 block of Burkhardt Ave., according to police.
At the hospital, Hankey and her son tested positive for the presence of cocaine, according to police.
Officers determined Hankey had been smoking crack cocaine and used two other drugs at a house while her son was in the room, according to police. Authorities said they don’t believe the child was actually given drugs, but inhaled the smoke.
High court orders Doron Silverman back to prison
DAYTON — Doron Silverman, the former West Carrollton man accused of molesting his 4-year-old son, will return to prison to finish his five-year sentence, under an Ohio Supreme Court decision handed down Thursday, April 9.
Silverman will appear before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael T. Hall on Monday for a re-imposition of sentencing hearing.
Silverman, 28, was under investigation when his son, Mikel, and 4-month-old daughter died in a fire July 13, 2006 at their home. His wife Heather pleaded guilty last year to two counts of murder and three counts of aggravated arson and is serving a 30-years-to-life prison sentence.
Doron Silverman was convicted of gross sexual imposition after a jury trial months after the children died. That conviction was reversed by the Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals in February 2008.
The issue was statements from Doron Silverman’s sister and boyfriend that Hall allowed during the trial. The two testified that Mikel told them that his father had molested him.
Those statements were admitted under an exception to the hearsay rule, the appeals court found, but Hall should have determined Mikel’s competency to testify. Hall had found that because the boy was dead, the court did not need to determine his competency.
In a 4-3 decision written by Justice Maureen O’Connor, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that, under Ohio Evidence Rule 807, a third party may present “hearsay” testimony in a criminal trial relating to a child’s allegations of sexual or physical abuse, if the child is not available to testify, without a prior determination by the court of the child’s competence to testify.
“Although I firmly believe a finding of competency is necessary to ensure reliability under this evidence rule, I certainly respect the decision of the Supreme Court,” said Frank Malocu, Doron Silverman’s attorney
Englewood loses appeal concerning street lights
DAYTON — The city of Englewood has lost its appeal of a Montgomery County Common Pleas judge’s ruling that it may not take over the street lights on city streets from a private company.
The Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals upheld Judge Frances McGee’s decision from September, when she ruled that Miami Valley Lighting’s street lights are not a public utility. MVL provides street lighting systems throughout the Miami Valley.
“The public’s daily functioning would not be severely limited by the absence of street lighting. … Residents of Englewood and elsewhere are not dependent on street lighting as they are on, say, electricity in their home,” McGee wrote.
City attorneys claimed McGee made four errors, but the appeals court decision overruled all of them.
City officials claim they can save the taxpayers more than $100,000 annually and provide better service by taking over the street lighting system. McGee agreed the city has the right to appropriate real property through eminent domain for the public good.
The city leases the lights from MVL for around $220,000 a year. A city analysis found it could run the system for $117,000 annually.
MVL claimed its 1,300 street lights — about 90 percent of the lights in the city — do not constitute a public utility. Nor is the system real property; it is MVL’s equipment that can be removed should the contract with the city lapse.
McGee agreed with both arguments. In finding MVL’s property as equipment not real property, the city “does not have the power to appropriate the street lighting system,” McGee wrote.
Finally, the city claimed under its home rule power the right to declare the street lighting system as a public utility, but McGee disagreed, writing that “adopting Englewood’s interpretation … would seem to allow a city to declare any item of property as a public utility which would in turn give the city the ability to appropriate property. Such an interpretation is an abuse of the city’s home rule powers.”
Mother gets three-year prison term in connection with son’s death
DAYTON — A Camden women was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday, April 8, after she pleaded guilty to one count of child endangerment in the death of her 3-year-old son.
Heidi Hollon, 27, had originally pleaded guilty in 2007, then withdrew her guilty plea. Her trial was to start next week.
A second count of child endangerment against Hollon was dismissed as part of the agreement.
Kyle Klein died Dec. 15, 2006 as the result of severe injuries he suffered at the hands of his stepfather, Dennis Hollon, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment on April 30, 2007. Dennis Hollon is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
According to Montgomery County prosecutors, Heidi Hollon was aware that her husband was abusing the boy.
“The defendant failed to protect her child in the months preceding his death when she knew her child was being violently abused,” said Prosecutor Mathias H. Heck, Jr. “Further, she failed to obtain immediate medical attention for her child, who was in clear medical distress, and her failure to act contributed to the child’s death.”
Heidi Hollon could have received a five-year sentence. The three-year term is identical to what she would have received under her original plea agreement.
Damarion Flippin’s killer sentenced to 13 years in prison
DAYTON — An alleged gang member who admitted gunning down a classmate at an RTA bus stop was sentenced Tuesday, April 7, to 13 years in state prison.
Scott Cook, Jr., 18, who was described by a juvenile judge in March as a “high-ranking gang member,” was transferred over to the general division to be tried as an adult. He was 17 when he shot Damarion Flippin on Nov. 13.
Cook pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault charges Tuesday, March 24.
“It has been so painful for me since my son’s been gone for no reason at all,” said Mike Dillard, Flippin’s father. “Put the guns and knives down. It ain’t worth it in the end.”
Cook’s attorney, Anthony VanNoy, told Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances McGee that his client “regrets the choices that he made,” and Cook mumbled an apology.
“You know that’s not enough,” McGee told him, adding that she reviewed his statements about the case. “You didn’t man up, but out there on the streets, you were a man because you had a gun.”
McGee said that Flippin did nothing to provoke Cook, who beat him up, then returned with a gun. Even if Cook felt “disrespected” by Flippin, McGee said “that is a blip in the life you could have had. You made a 30-second decision that changed everybody else’s life.”
The 13-year-sentence was part of the plea agreement between Montgomery County prosecutors and VanNoy.
Flippin, 17, who lived at 108 Pointview Ave., was shot about 6:30 a.m. Nov 13 after a brief argument at the RTA bus stop on Santa Clara and Wheatley avenues.
Flippin was pronounced dead six hours later at Miami Valley Hospital. He was on his way to the Isus Institute of Construction Technology, a charter school. Both Flippin and Cook were students at the school.
Police arrested Cook the same day, and he was held in juvenile detention until March 3, when Juvenile Court Judge Anthony Capizzi ordered him transferred to the Montgomery County Jail and set a $1 million bond.
Capizzi, who said that investigative reports called Cook a “high-ranking member” of the GVC gang, said Cook was not amenable to treatment in the juvenile system and said Cook should be tried as an adult.
Capizzi said that he did not know if Flippin’s death was the result of gang activity, but said Flippin had done nothing to provoke Cook, who apparently went to the school after the shooting for an expulsion hearing.
Isus principal Barbara Wagner testified March 3 that during that expulsion hearing, a staff member handed her a note that stated police were there for Cook.
Cook had 10 unexcused absences and 19 tardies between, Sept. 26, his first day at the school, and his suspension in early November. He was suspended with a recommendation for expulsion because he entered the basement, which is off limits to students, then left the school property without permission, Wagner testified.
During the March 3 hearing, prosecutors also called Johnny Vance, Cook’s probation officer, who said that Cook had more than 40 referrals to the juvenile system during the previous five years, but never before for a felony offense. Many of those referrals were unruly or truancy offenses, and had been generated by phone calls from Cook’s mother, Vance said.
Cook was “non-compliant” in counseling programs and had his probation extended four to five times during a three-year period, Vance said.
Two women indicited in connection with largest PCP seizure in OSP history
EATON — Two Las Vegas women implicated in the largest PCP seizure in Ohio State Highway Patrol history have been indicted in Preble County on felony charges, the OSP said Tuesday, April 7.
10 gallons of liquid PCP seized March 12 by the Ohio State Highway PatrolThe PCP, valued at $3 million, is the first bulk seizure of PCP the patrol has ever taken, said Sgt. Karla Taulbee. Past PCP seizures were smaller amounts that suspects had for personal use, Taulbee said.
Lisandra Pearson, 22, and Dianira Garcia, 24, were both charged with aggravated possession of liquid PCP, a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The two were in a rented 2009 Cadillac Escalade when troopers stopped them on March 12. Pearson was driving the car, which was eastbound on Interstate 70 in Preble County. The car was stopped for a following too closely violation and turn signal violations at 11:57 a.m., the OSP said.
A patrol drug-detecting dog alerted positively to the vehicle. A probable cause search revealed a total of 10 individual gallons of liquid PCP hidden in a locked suitcase.
Pearson and Garcia are free on bond. Patrol investigators do not know where the two were traveling to, Taulbee said.
Man pleads guilty to aggravated murder of longtime Sinclair employee
DAYTON — A Dayton man pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and tampering with evidence Friday, April 3, in the July 2008 beating death of a Sinclair Community College employee.
Under the plea agreement reached between Montgomery County prosecutors and defense attorneys, Mark Anthony Nolan will serve 20 years to life in prison. Common Pleas Judge Michael L. Tucker sentenced Nolan during the Friday hearing.
The charges are in the death of Stephen Linderman, 59, who was found fatally beaten in the bedroom of his home in the 1600 block of Northdale Road. Detectives said he had severe blunt force head trauma.
Under the plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed a second aggravated murder charge, plus counts of aggravated burglary, theft, grand theft, failure to comply and petty theft.
Nolan, 31, has been in the Montgomery County Jail on $1 million bond since his arrest.
Linderman was an Enterprise Applications administrator in information technology and had been employed at Sinclair since 1987, the school said.
Assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Dan Brandt said Linderman met Nolan on July 18 outside the Greyhound Station in downtown Dayton. The two went to Linderman’s home, where they drank and watched television before they had a disagreement.
Nolan beat Linderman in the head and face with a “large heavy glass jug,” and a flower pot, even as Linderman tried to crawl away from him, Brandt said.
After Linderman died, Nolan stole his iPod, laptop, a starter pistol and his sport utility vehicle. Police spotted Nolan driving the vehicle a few days later; a chase started, but Nolan escaped on foot after crashing the vehicle, Brandt said.
Police arrested Nolan near the Dayton Metro Library’s downtown Dayton branch on July 24. He was carrying a backpack that contained Linderman’s starter pistol, Brandt said.
