Ponitz graduation 2012
Cars and Parts Swap Meet
2012 senior class photos
Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2010 > February > 24
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
North Plaza Inn closed permanently by judicial order
HARRISON TWP., Montgomery County — The North Plaza Inn, a source of frequent trouble in Dayton’s DeWeese-Ridgecrest neighborhood, will stay closed for a year, under a permanent injunction ordered Tuesday, Feb. 23.
The hotel, at 3636 N. Dixie Drive, just east of the Dayton-Harrison Twp. border. Neighbors have long complained that the hotel, which rented rooms for $29 a day, is known for drugs and prostitution.
Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Connie S. Price issued a temporary injunction and closing order on Nov. 18. The following day, Sheriff Phil Plummer and Prosecutor Mathias H. Heck Jr. shut the hotel down, moving people out and changing the locks.
According to the permanent order Price signed Tuesday, attorneys for Empire Hospitality Group and the prosecutor’s office had agreed to the permanent injunction. Under the agreement, Empire and its employees are restrained from entering the hotel or the parking lot until Nov. 17.
The agreement eliminates the need for a civil trial to decide whether to shut the hotel down.
During the two and a half years before county authorities shut it down, the hotel was the site of 1,900 calls to the sheriff’s dispatch. What happened at the hotel rarely made media accounts. One exception was when Rachel White was arrested in April 2008 for prostituting her 17-year-old daughter at the hotel. White is now serving a 30-month prison term.
Empire is owned by Sridar Kadaba, a web site designer who works in Manhattan and lives in East Brunswick, N.J.
Last year, Price held a four-day hearing about problems at the hotel. According to a brief filed by assistant county prosecutor Victoria Watson:
— Kadaba’s property manager was arrested at the hotel Sept. 28 for felony violations.
— Sheriff’s Deputy Josh Haas testified he has seen Kadaba in the hotel’s Jacuzzi room “with several known prostitutes.”
— Haas testified that, on one occasion, a 3-year-old child at the hotel was stuck with a used hypodermic needle.
Permalink | |
Man who killed developmentally disabled man sentenced to prison
DAYTON — A Dayton man convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2008 beating death of a developmentally disabled man was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday, Feb. 23.
Derek W. Byrd, 44, of 2052 Ravenwood Ave., appeared before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances E. McGee. He was to go on trial on Jan. 20, but pleaded guilty on Jan.8.
Police found DonnRay Jackie Dixon’s badly beaten body July 17, 2008 on Ravenwood, a few blocks from his house on West Fairview Avenue, after people driving by saw him lying near the intersection.
When police arrived, Byrd was comforting Dixon, police said. Dixon, 25, died the next day at Miami Valley Hospital, his uncle Daniel Dixon said in July 2008.
Death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head, Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab Director Ken Betz said. Police said Byrd beat Dixon with his fists.
Byrd surrendered to police on July 29, 2008, but had been free on bond since October 2008. A grand jury indicted him on the manslaughter count in April 2009.
Dixon, who the uncle said was developmentally disabled, lived with his mother and siblings in the 700 block of West Fairview.
Permalink | |
Home invaders sentenced to prison
DAYTON — Two men convicted of several felonies in connection with a Huber Heights home invasion were sentenced Tuesday, Feb. 23, to more than three decades in prison.
Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances E. McGee sentenced Demetrius Ewing to 31 years and Anthony Wayne Jones to 37 years.
The two were convicted of all indicted charges on Feb. 8, the day they were to go on trial.
Ewing, 30, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated burglary, four counts of kidnapping, five counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of felonious assault, three counts of assault and one count of being a felon in possession of a weapon. Jones, 53, pleaded no contest to the same charges, as well as one count of tampering with evidence.
The charges concern a Feb. 22, 2009 robbery at 5483 Misty Lane. According to police reports, the two men entered an apartment there through a back door while three people were in the residence. A woman’s wrists were bound, a man was put in a closet with the door tied shut and a second man handcuffed and shot in the groin area. Property was allegedly stolen from the apartment and the victims told police they did not know their attackers.
Ewing and Jones have remained in the Montgomery County Jail since their arrests.
Permalink | |
Former Kettering Animal Hospital clerk convicted of identity theft crimes
DAYTON — A former Kettering Animal Hospital clerk, accused of using customers’ credit cards for personal use, pleaded guilty to a 40-count indictment Wednesday, Feb. 23.
Michael E. Rohrer, 23, appeared before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael T. Hall, who set sentencing for March 23.
Rohrer pleaded guilty to 13 counts of misuse of credit cards, 13 counts of theft, 13 counts of identity fraud and one count of receiving stolen property.
Rohrer photocopied the credit cards that customers used to pay the business. Between May and August, Rohrer used the credit card information to pay for hotel rooms and room service in Columbus.
“The callousness he displayed in his spending spree is simply amazing,” said Montgomery County Prosecutor Mathias H. Heck, Jr. “He used other people’s credit to pay for expensive hotel rooms and fancy meals.”
Permalink | |
