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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Zobel transferred to Dayton, will appear in court on Friday
DAYTON — A Michigan man charged with the sexual assault of two Xenia girls was transferred to Dayton on Wednesday, June 17, and will appear in U.S. District Court for a hearing on Friday.
David Jeremy Zobel will appear before Judge Thomas M. Rose at 1:30 p.m. The hearing will deal with federal prosecutor’s motion to revoke bond.
On Monday, a U.S. magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Michigan ordered Zobel be released on $10,000 bond. On Tuesday, Rose ordered that decision be stayed pending the resolution of the prosecutor’s motion.
On Friday, June 12, FBI agents arrested Zobel in connection with the sexual assault of two Xenia girls ages 12 and 13 in Toledo, FBI officials said.
Zobel, 32, of Ann Arbor, Mich., who is a church music director, has been charged in a federal complaint with one count of interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. If convicted, Zobel could face up to 30 years in prison.
According to an FBI affidavit in the case, Zobel admitted to agents he had engaged in online sexual dialogue with one of the girls, whom he believed to be 16, since November 2008. He also admitted driving to Xenia, picking up that girl and a friend who wanted to run away, and driving them to Toledo.
FBI special agent Michael Brooks said Zobel has denied sexually assaulting the girls, but agents found sexually explicit pictures of the girls on a camera when they searched Zobel’s home.
The criminal complaint alleges that Zobel drove the girls only to Toledo because he feared transporting two underage girls across state lines. But the girls told Toledo police that once there, Zobel drove to a parking garage, locked the doors of his car and refused to open them until the girls performed sexual acts.
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Testimony continues in trial of men accused of fatal beating
DAYTON — The ex-girlfriend of Robert Hancher testified Wednesday, June 17, that she saw Hancher and his friend stomping and kicking Stephen C. Sipos while he was on the ground , but also acknowledged that she gave different details when she first spoke with police.
“I didn’t want to see him get in trouble,” Grace Agullana said during cross-examination.
Hancher, 24, and Robert Tyler Kleekamp, 23, are on trial in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court for murder. They are accused of beating Sipos to death Feb. 2, 2008 in the parking lot behind Meercat’s Bar and Grill, 1227 Wilmington Ave. Defense attorneys argue that Sipos, who was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed more than 300 pounds, was the aggressor who hit Hancher first.
On Tuesday, Hancher’s half-brother Antonio Gomez pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter just before opening arguments started.
Sipos, 32, was pronounced dead on arrival at Miami Valley Hospital. He died of blunt force trauma to the head and neck after suffering at least 10 blows, Kent Harshbarger, a forensic pathologist with the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, testified Tuesday.
Agullana, 22, said she was inside Meercat’s when Sipos, who she had never met before, “made a pass at me.”
She said she told Hancher, who told Sipos she was with him. The two settled it peacefully inside the bar, she said.
Later, as they were in the parking lot, Hancher and Sipos exchanged words and Agullana said she saw them “locked up,” holding each other’s arms, “but they weren’t swinging.”
At that point, Kleekamp attacked Sipos, she said. “He sucker punched him from behind,” she said.
She also saw them kicking Sipos and stomping him after he fell to the ground.
Later that day, Kleekamp bragged about the beating, even after they learned Sipos had died, she said.
But during cross examination, Agullana acknowledged that she had been doing shots and had consumed 10 to 12 drinks that evening. She said she did not remember what Sipos and Hancher were saying to each other in the parking lot, but “they weren’t friendly words.”
Asked about her original statements to police, in which she said Sipos followed her and Hancher outside, she said “I was lying.”
Also Wednesday, Paul Credlebaugh returned to the witness stand. On Tuesday, Credlebaugh testified that Hancher and Kleekamp stuck Sipos simultaneously, that Sipos then fell without hitting them, and they kicked him repeatedly. He also said Kleekamp hit Sipos from behind.
But Credlebaugh said he did not see Sipos inside the bar, and that he had been with Hancher and Kleekamp when they were there.
During cross examination, he acknowledged to defense attorneys that his story had changed since his first interviews with detectives, when he said Sipos and Hancher were pushing each other.
“As I can recall now, the guy never laid a hand on Robbie,” he said.
When asked if he remembered the incident better 17 months later than the day after, Credlebaugh answered yes and said he had replayed the events in his mind repeatedly.
He acknowledged that he called police in part because he was worried that he could get implicated in the incident, even though he said he was pulling Hancher and Kleekamp off Sipos. He said he also called because “what they did was completely disgusting.”
Credlebaugh, who had been friends with Hancher for years, but after he learned that Sipos had died, “I told Robbie I was done with him.”
The trial, before Judge Michael T. Hall, is scheduled to continue through this week.
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