Cops: Restaurant owner staged burglaries, shooting

Defendant in fraud case wants evidence excluded from case.

DAYTON — Investigators believed indicted restaurant owner Eva Christian hired a man now in prison to stage two burglaries as well as a gunman’s attack in 2009, according to a search warrant unsealed this week.

Christian, 43, owner of Boulevard Haus and former owner of Cena Brazilian Steakhouse, was indicted March 18 on two counts of insurance fraud and two counts of making false alarms, all felonies.

One of the fraud counts alleges an amount in excess of $100,000.

She was in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday for a hearing to exclude evidence in her case. Her attorneys argued that search warrants executed at her Washington Twp. home were illegal.

The charges concern a burglary Christian reported at her home, 6855 Saint Laurent Circle, on Oct. 11, 2009, and one at Cena, 2854 Miamisburg-Centerville Road, Dec. 24, 2009.

The warrant unsealed this week concerns a January 2010 search of her home.

A second warrant remains sealed.

According to the warrant affidavit filed by Montgomery County sheriff’s Detective Brad Daugherty, an informant told Miami Twp. Detective Todd Comer on Jan. 11, 2010, that Christian hired Darryl E. Adams, Sr. to break into the restaurant and to fire shots at Christian on Dec. 4, 2009.

Comer testified Wednesday that it was an anonymous caller who apparently knew Adams, 49, but wouldn’t say how.

Adams, his son Darryl Jr., 19, and Diane Jones, 42, are in prison for theft-related offenses involving a January 2010 burglary at an Englewood company.

But Daugherty’s affidavit states that Adams Jr. told detectives his father said Christian paid him $1,000 to steal TVs and computers in burglarizing her home.

Those items were later returned to Christian, Adams told detectives.

Christian also wanted the elder Adams to break into Cena and “blow it up,” but he refused because there were other restaurants attached, Adams Jr. said.

Jones and Adams Jr. said they had no knowledge of a shooting incident Christian reported Dec. 4, 2009. Christian told deputies that as she got out of her car, an unknown person fired at her.

Deputies found five bullet holes in the garage door, two bullets inside and four casings in the driveway, according to the affidavit.

A lawsuit against Christian, filed by the Cincinnati Insurance Co., is pending.

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