COLUMBUS, Ohio - A lockup on Lake Erie has become the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private company....
Offering the prisons for sale was an idea spearheaded by Governor John Kasich as he grappled with an $8 billion budget hole this year....
The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, which represents corrections employees, had protested the sale.
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"Ohio parole board argues against pardon" September 03, 2011|Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Parole Board yesterday recommended that the governor not pardon a woman who was jailed for using her father’s address to enroll her children in a neighboring school district.
Kelley Williams-Bolar of Akron served nine days in jail earlier this year for falsifying information on records that she used to send her daughters to a school outside the city. She said her conviction for felony records tampering threatens her efforts to earn her teacher’s license.
The board said Williams-Bolar could have solved her schooling situation legitimately and was dishonest before and after her conviction....
We have looting banks and war criminal liars in this country and this is what the state is concerned about?
Brad Gessner, Summit County’s chief assistant prosecutor, told the parole board that Williams-Bolar engaged in a pattern of deception when it came to falsifying documents.
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"Ohio judge sets new trial in 1967 killing of 14-year-old girl" August 30, 2011|Associated Press
TOLEDO, Ohio - A man accused of holding a schoolgirl captive for days in his basement before killing her and dumping her body in Michigan in 1967 will go on trial again, after jurors could not agree on a verdict in his first trial.
A judge yesterday set the second trial for Oct. 11.
Robert Bowman’s first trial ended last week with jurors saying they had been unable to reach a unanimous decision following several weeks of testimony and 12 hours of deliberations. Prosecutors charged Bowman, 75, with murder in the killing after saying that new DNA evidence tied him to the crime. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to life in prison if convicted. He has remained in jail since his arrest three years ago.
Prosecutors say Bowman snatched 14-year-old Eileen Adams after she got off a bus and sexually assaulted her before killing her. Her body was found in southern Michigan six weeks after she disappeared. Adams was either strangled or died from a blow to the head that cracked her skull, prosecutors said.
During the trial, Bowman’s former wife told jurors she had found the girl alive, naked, and tied up in the basement after the girl disappeared in 1967.
Margaret Bowman said she ran upstairs and her husband confronted her, saying he had to kill the girl. He also threatened to kill his wife and their newborn daughter if she told anyone, she said. That same night, she testified, Bowman made her go with him as he dumped the body.
Defense attorney Peter Rost tried to cast doubt on Margaret Bowman’s account. He said she waited 14 years to tell her story to police and that she stayed with Bowman for 11 years and moved with him to three states before leaving when his business failed.
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