Raleigh Trammell: the defense calls witnesses

By Lou Grieco | Friday, May 25, 2012, 04:03 PM

DAYTON — A witness called by Raleigh Trammell testified Friday that he had been ordered to do community service and put to work at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headquarters — but at a for-profit restaurant that shares a kitchen with the SCLC’s home meal delivery service.

The second witness Trammell’s attorneys called, Leroy Briscoe said he delivered food for Trammell, and that the food was good, including hamburgers, chicken and sandwiches. He told defense attorneys that he ate the food once during the seven months he worked there and it was good.

But when assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Dan Brandt asked him, Briscoe said he did not know what the SCLC was. He insisted he worked at Chris’ Kitchen, a soul-food restaurant that shared a kitchen with the meals program in the SCLC building, and said the food he had eaten was from the restaurant.

Prosecution witnesses testified earlier this week that Trammell would buy food from The Foodbank and split it between charitable enterprises and the restaurant and that drivers served both the meals program and the restaurant’s delivery service.

Trammell, 74, faces 51 felony counts stemming from the alleged thefts. The trial is expected to continue into next week. Prosecutors contend that the county reimbursed $38,000 to the SCLC for 7,000 meals that were not delivered between 2005 and early 2010.

Those cases involve eight people, two of them who died before the period when they were included on invoices for hundreds of meals. Two others testified this week that they never received any meals, and did not know who signed them up for the program, run by the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, another Trammell-controlled organization, out of the SCLC headquarters.

Trammell’s first witness, Kevin Webb, testified that he worked as a driver for the SCLC between 2007 and 2009, delivering meals. During that time, he said, he visited with Oscar Davis and his wife at their home and delivered meals to them.

Prosecution witnesses testified that Davis, whose legs had been amputated and who could only move the right side of his body, was living at the Dayton VA Medical Center’s nursing home during that period.

Webb also said that he had spoken to both Robert Pennington and India Rutledge many times when he delivered meals to them. Rutledge told him to leave her meals with her neighbor if she wasn’t home, Webb said. He said she was frequently at work when he came by her apartment.

Earlier this week, Pennington and Rutledge, both disabled, testified for the prosecution that they had never spoken to anyone from the program and didn’t know who signed them up for it. Pennington said only received meals once — after a prosecutor’s investigator contacted him.

Rutledge said she never received meals from the SCLC and that she was at home recovering from back surgeries when someone signed her up for the program in October 2007. She said someone forged her signature on two surveys about the program.

The defense called numerous friends and allies of Trammell, many of them ministers or deacons from various churches. Most said that they had been to the SCLC and the food prepared there appeared to be of good quality. When cross examined, most were unsure whether the food they saw, sampled and smelled was for the restaurant or the meals program.

The defense also called Lori Draine, a program specialist with Montgomery County Job and Family Services, to testify about two visits she made to the SCLC, one in 2008 and the other in 2009. She found nothing wrong with the meals delivery program during those visits, she said.

Paper she filed showed that she wrote that the program quality was “good,” and described it as a “grass root operation, small but organized.”

Draine said that she did not inspect food or go on visits, but looked at files. The program served 10 people at any given time, and she looked at files for five of them, she said.

She did speak to one client, but was unaware at the time that he was a longtime friend of Trammell’s, she said.

Asked on cross examination if she would have objected if she had known that some of those clients were dead or in assisted care facilities, she said yes. Draine also said that this case had caused the county to change how it evaluated these types of programs.

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Raleigh Trammell: The prosecution rests

By Lou Grieco | Thursday, May 24, 2012, 03:47 PM

DAYTON — Montgomery County reimbursed the Southern Christian Leadership’s home delivery meals service $38,000 for 7,000 meals that were not delivered, a county investigator said Thursday.

Tom Mygrants, an investigator with the prosecutor’s fraud office, was the state’s final witness in the trial of former SCLC official Raleigh Trammell. The defense will start calling witnesses Friday morning.

Mygrants listed eight people on a spreadsheet he created who were to have received those meals between 2005 and early 2010. Two of the people testified that they never received any meals, and did not know who signed them up for the program, run by the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, another Trammell-controlled organization, out of the SCLC headquarters.

Two others were deceased at the time they were supposedly sent hundreds of meals billed to the county. Defense attorneys contend that, in those cases, unknown individuals defrauded the program without the knowledge of Trammell or any other SCLC employee. The other cases are the result of accounting and other errors, defense attorneys have said.

Trammell, 74, faces 51 felony counts stemming from the alleged thefts. The trial is expected to continue into next week.

Also Thursday, Burma Thomas, the former executive director for The Foodbank, testified that the SCLC was a Foodbank member. The Foodbank obtains food through various sources, much of it donated, which it then sells to non-profit groups that help the poor.

Asked whether it was proper to purchase Foodbank food then use it in a for-profit restaurant, Thomas said “Absolutely not.”

On Wednesday, former SCLC employee DaMisha Douglas testified that she and Trammell would pick up the food from the Foodbank, then divide it between the meals program, a food bank at the SCLC, and Chris’ Kitchen, a soul food restaurant run from the SCLC headquarters.

The ministerial alliance was a Foodbank member, meaning Trammell could purchase food for 4 cents a pound. That membership was suspended after the ministerial alliance missed a quarterly dues payment in the fall of 2007, Thomas said.

In that fiscal year, the ministerial alliance should have paid about $2,400 in dues, she said. When Trammell tried to get the status back, he said he did not have the money.

Thomas testified that she told Trammell he would have to layoff people, including some of his relatives, and “he said he could not do that.”

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Raleigh Trammell: SCLC employees testify about food quality, for-profit restaurant

By Lou Grieco | Wednesday, May 23, 2012, 05:20 PM

DAYTON — Clients of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s home-delivered meals program complained about the food’s quality “all the time,” a former employee testified Wednesday at the trial of Raleigh Trammell.

DaMisha Douglas, who once worked as Trammell’s assistant, said that she drove him around and also occasionally worked as a cook in the restaurant at the SCLC building that served both the food program, paid for by taxpayers, and Chris’ Kitchen a for-profit soul food restaurant.

Trammell, 74, faces 51 felony counts stemming from the alleged theft of $50,000 from 2005 to 2010 from a home-delivered meals program for the elderly that Trammell’s social service agency administered.

Douglas filed a lawsuit against Trammell in 2010, claiming he repeatedly sexually harassed her. That lawsuit was settled out of court, according to court records in January.

Douglas testified that Trammell would obtain food from the Emergency Food Bank, which would be divided between Chris’ Kitchen, the meals program and a food bank at the SCLC. Some of the food cooked at the restaurant would be used for the meals program, if it was burnt or spoiled, she said.

The food quality varied, depending on funding, Douglas said. A meal often would be a sandwich, a salad and some fruits and vegetables. But if supplies were short, it might be burnt, leftover BBQ from Chris’ Kitchen, she said.

If people complained, Trammell would have another meal from the same batch of food sent to them, she said.

Douglas, who grew up going to Central Missionary Baptist Church, where Trammell has been pastor since 1966, said she recognized names of parishioners on the delivery lists. One was Oscar Davis, a deacon in the church and Trammell friend for decades. Invoices introduced as exhibits show that Davis received HOW MANY meals when he was living in the Dayton VA Medical Center’s nursing home. On Tuesday, different VA employees testified that it was impossible that Davis received those meals.

Douglas said that, on occasion, food was delivered to Davis at the VA, but it was food from the Chris’ Kitchen menu.

“Oscar was special, so Oscar could call and ask for anything he wanted,” Douglas said.

One time, she delivered a chicken cheese steak sandwich to Davis. She also said she drove Trammell on three to five occassions to visit Davis at the VA.

Also Wednesday, two other former SCLC employees testified. Michael Ecton said that he prepared the invoices that were submitted for reimbursement, but had no knowledge that some of the people on those lists were not receiving meals, or that two of them were dead.

Glenn Herring, who served as a delivery driver for the food program between 2006 and 2008, said the food quality “never” went down and he ate it himself at times.

The trial will continue Thursday with more testimony from Douglas. Prosecutors will finish direct testimony, then the defense will get a chance to cross examine her.

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Man pleads to voluntary manslaughter in Whitney Young Estates slaying

By Lou Grieco | Wednesday, May 23, 2012, 04:35 PM

DAYTON — A 21-year-old man pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter Wednesday in the Oct. 6 slaying of another man in the parking lot of the Whitney Young Estates apartment complex.

Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman set Jamar Carpenter’s sentencing for June 11. Under the plea agreement, Carpenter is facing 10 years in prison for the death of Essien S. Obong Jr.

Carpenter turned himself in to the Montgomery County Jail on Oct. 10. At the time, his attorney, Jon Paul Rion said Obong’s shooting was self-defense.

Witnesses said a large group was in the parking lot when shots rang out about 4:15 p.m. Obong was hit several times.

In court records from 2010, Obong’s address is listed as the 500 block of East Beechwood Avenue. Several witnesses said he had recently been released from prison.

Obong pleaded no contest to single counts of drug possession involving heroin, cocaine and marijuana, as well as criminal trespass and resisting arrest. He was sentenced Oct. 20, 2010, to two concurrent one-year terms.

He served time in 2004 for receiving stolen property and attempted robbery, and in 2006 for drug possession (cocaine). In August 2008, Obong was arrested at the now-closed Club Cream for trying to carry in a handgun. Police said he told them he needed the gun because someone was trying to kill him. He was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and having a weapon as a convicted felon.

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Raleigh Trammell: civil rights leader’s fraud trial starts

By Lou Grieco | Monday, May 21, 2012, 11:12 AM

DAYTON - The trial of Raleigh Trammell, the former Southern Christian Leadership Conference official accused of stealing taxpayer money intended to help the poor, opened with a quote from the SCLC’s most famous founder.

“Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: ‘Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness,’” assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Ward Barrentine said. “This defendant, Raleigh Trammell basked in the light of being someone who was there for the needy and the poor. But what you will find is that he was really in it for himself.”

Two of the people who Trammell claimed to feed were dead, two had never heard of his program and three were in long-term care facilities and were not receiving extra meals, Barrentine said.

But Trammell’s attorneys portrayed a different man: one who had fed the poor for decades, one who made accounting errors, but ultimately meant well.

“Raleigh Trammell cared about feeding people in the community and he did the best he could with the resources he had,” said Candace Crouse. “There were mistakes that were made. There was no intent to steal any public funds.”

The trial, before common pleas Judge Michael L. Tucker, started Thursday, but jury selection took up the first two days.

Trammell, 74, faces 51 felony counts stemming from the alleged theft of $50,000 from 2005 to 2010 from a home-delivered meals program for the elderly that Trammell’s social service agency administered.

The trial is expected to last more than two weeks in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.

A Montgomery County grand jury indicted Trammell on the charges after a Dayton Daily News investigation found that Trammell’s program claimed to be providing meals to people who weren’t being served, including a trustee of his church who was living at the Dayton Veterans Affairs nursing home and the trustee’s hospitalized wife.

The newspaper also found that Trammell accepted federal funding for a food pantry and a battered women’s shelter that didn’t exist. Public officials withdrew $419,000 in county, state and federal funding in 2010 for two Trammell-controlled groups, the Dayton chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance.

“He literally stole money from the poor,” Barrentine told the jury during his opening statement.

Barrentine said that Trammell claimed his agency modeled its services on the “Meals on Wheels” program at Senior Resources Connection, which charged the county $6.10 per meal. Trammell’s group charged $5.48 per meal and was funded to serve about 10 people at any time. Between 2005 and 2009, the SCLC received between $36,000 and $39,000 for the program, Barentine said.

One of those people who was on the SCLC invoices was Oscar Davis, a long-time friend of Trammell, an amputee and stroke victim who lived at the Dayton VA Medical Center. The SCLC used a different address for Davis in its invoices sent to the county for reimbursement, Barrentine said.

During that same period, Trammell visited Davis at the hospital, so he knew that the address was false, Barrentine said.

“This defendant, and only this defendant, controlled all the money,” Barrentine said.

At times, the checks from the county went into Trammell’s personal bank account, he said.

But Crouse said that Trammell and his wife often loaned money to the SCLC for the program, which would be reimbursed for costs later by the county.

Crouse also said that some of the people who should not have gotten meals received them because they lied to the SCLC. The agency was cooking meals for up to 100 people every day, she said.

The quality of the food did fluctuate, Crouse said, but the SCLC did develop menus with the consultation of a nutritionist. The organization had no motivation to make up false people because there was a waiting list, she said.

She also said county officials did check on the SCLC and gave the agency good reviews for its programming.

“Raleigh Trammell is a very polarizing figure in the Dayton community,” Crouse said. “Some people love him and some people hate him. Raleigh Trammell did not steal public funds.”

Trammell, a former top county welfare official convicted of grand theft and larceny in a welfare scam in the 1970s, was sentenced to 4 to 10 years in prison, but served just over a year before receiving parole in 1980. He was elected to head the Dayton SCLC chapter in 1983 and held on to that post for more than three decades.

He continued to rise in the national leadership of the SCLC as well, becoming vice chairman in 1996 and national chairman in 2004.

Trammell was ousted from the local and national SCLC in 2010 after a faction of the national SCLC board accused Trammell and the SCLC treasurer of misappropriating more than $569,000. In November, the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney determined there was no proof the expenditures weren’t approved.

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Teen sentenced to prison for January slaying

By Lou Grieco | Friday, May 18, 2012, 11:42 AM

DAYTON — The teen convicted of fatally shooting a man in the street in January was sentenced to 21-years-to-life in prison on Friday.

A jury convicted Levi Slaughter, 19, on April 27 of murder and illegal discharge of a firearm near prohibited premises. A third count of being a felon in possession of a weapon was tried to the bench, and Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Dennis J. Langer convicted him of that as well.

All charges were in connection with the Jan. 17 shooting of Douglas Byrd, 30, at Salem and Pittsburg avenues. Byrd was shot several times in the back of the head. Slaughter was 18 at the time.

“The state convicted an innocent man, so a killer remains on the streets,” Slaughter told Langer.

But Langer told Slaughter that the “evidence is overwhelming you committed this crime.”

Langer noted that eyewitnesses who knew him and were present testified he was the shooter, that surveillance video showed Byrd and Slaughter together minutes before the shooting, and that the description given by a disinterested woman who saw the slaying matched Slaughter. Langer also read part of a letter written by Slaughter that incriminated him in the homicide.

“This is your own handwriting,” Langer said. “You’re lying when you say you didn’t do this.”

Langer also noted that Slaughter, after he was convicted, turned back to Byrd’s family and “you used the F word and you laughed at them.”

Byrd had 10 children, said Langer, who also read Slaughter’s lengthy juvenile record into the record, including aggravated robbery, receiving stolen property and theft counts.

According to sheriff’s detectives, Byrd was in a vehicle with others when an argument erupted. Witnesses told deputies that Byrd got out of the vehicle and started to walk away. Another occupant then got out, walked up behind Byrd and fired a gun several times.

Slaughter was captured Feb. 6 at an apartment building in Huber Heights by a federal strike team.

At the time, Sheriff Phil Plummer said Byrd was known to be involved in gang activity and speculated that the killing may have been gang-related. But sheriff’s officials later said the investigation uncovered no gang connections.

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Man whose DNA linked him to 2001 rape is sentenced to prison

By Lou Grieco | Friday, May 18, 2012, 10:35 AM

DAYTON — A man whose DNA linked him to the 2001 rape of a 14-year old Englewood girl, leading him to plead guilty to several felony charges, was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.

Robert S. Bernardi, 44, pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and counts of aggravated burglary, gross sexual imposition and kidnapping on April 13. He appeared before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Dennis J. Langer.

Bernardi was linked to the Englewood attack after his DNA was collected during his arrest for an unrelated offense in July.

The victim was sleeping in her bed at her family’s ranch-style home on April 8, 2001. The weather was warm and the windows were open. The attacker removed a screen from a window, entered the room and attacked her, according to police.

Her parents and a sister were asleep during the attack. Another sister was on the phone but did not hear anything, according to police.

A DNA profile, obtained from evidence left at the scene, was entered into the Combined DNA Index System.

The case went cold after police were unable to identify any suspects. In 2003, the prosecutor’s office filed a “John Doe” indictment against the person with the DNA profile found at the scene to keep the statute of limitations from expiring.

Miami County sheriff’s deputies arrested Bernardi on July 2 in connection with the abduction of a 15-year-old girl. He was charged with aggravated menacing and unlawful restraint, according to court records.

But deputies also collected a sample of Bernardi’s DNA, as mandated by a July 1 change in Ohio law. That change expanded DNA testing of those arrested for but not convicted of crimes.

His DNA was entered into the database, which then identified him as the other girl’s assailant, according to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office.

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