COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Potentially faulty
blood-alcohol testing at the city's police lab may have compromised hundreds of tests used in criminal cases, including those
to secure drunken-driving convictions, officials said.
Fifty-four
agencies, including federal offices, contract with the Columbus Division of Police to have lab work including blood-alcohol
and DNA tests done.
Deputy Police Chief John Rockwell said
Wednesday that an audit of tests done between October 1999 and November 2000 by the crime lab's leading analyzer, Mark Shaw,
was under way but would not say specifically what the problem was.
Police
spokeswoman Sherry Jones said crime-lab manager Jami St. Clair began reviewing Shaw's tests a few weeks ago when she discovered
that Shaw failed to renew his Ohio Department of Health permit.
Criminologists
must file paperwork with the state Health Department each year to be certified, Jones said.
``When that happened, she did a cursory review of his work and that's when she discovered some of her concerns,''
Jones said Thursday.
Jones said she did not know what concerned
St. Clair. She said police would not be releasing further details, citing the ongoing investigation.
Shaw, 34, did most of the lab's blood-alcohol tests and was in charge of calibrating the division's machine. He was
removed from his job as a criminologist in November and placed on clerical duties, which do not require certification, Jones
said.
Efforts to reach Shaw for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.
Attorney Joe Landusky said faulty tests could affect cases
involving people with a blood-alcohol percentage at or near 0.10, the level at which people are considered to be driving drunk
in Ohio.
``This could be a major deal with far-reaching impact,
depending on what exactly this criminologist did that was improper,'' said Landusky, who specializes in drunken-driving cases.
``I'm expecting a big ripple effect to our favor. People might
be able to request new trials or even get their convictions reversed.''
Jones said most drunken-driving cases will not be affected because defendants usually enter into plea agreements.
A defendant's attorney will be contacted if a test Shaw performed
is called into question, Jones said.
``It doesn't mean that
every single one of these is wrong,'' she said. ``We just want to make sure that there is no question of integrity in the
tests that he handled.
``Our biggest concern is that we want
to make sure people have trust and confidence in this system. There may be nothing wrong with these tests.''
Rockwell said any perceived errors did not seem intentional.
``We can only assume at this point it was negligence,'' the deputy chief said.
Swap-meet aficionado gets probation after pleading guilty to receiving
stolen property
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
DISPATCH STATE SERVICE
TOM DODGE DISPATCH
Attorney Joseph
Landusky, left, talks to his client, Ronald A. Miller, 60, as Miller pleads guilty to four counts of receiving stolen property.
Franklin County Deputy Sheriff Brenda Judy stands guard. Miller, of Gallia County, had purchased stolen goods at swap meets
and flea markets.
A Gallia County man once thought to be a key player in a multicounty theft ring walked out
of the Franklin County jail yesterday with money in his pocket.
In January,
Ronald A. Miller, 60, of Gallia in southern Ohio, was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property. Yesterday, he pleaded
guilty to possessing stolen furnaces and spare heating parts valued at about $10,000. He will be placed on probation for three
years, beginning in September, after having spent six months in the county jail.
Two
other men have pleaded guilty to theft for their roles in stealing the furnaces, coils and other parts from apartment complexes.
"I didn?t know they were stolen," Miller told Common Pleas
Judge Daniel T. Hogan during his plea to four counts of receiving stolen property.
If
he violates probation, he will be sentenced to four years in prison, Hogan said.
Assistant
County Prosecutor Brian Simms said investigators charged Miller with buying what he should have known were stolen parts from
the two men over a three-year period.
At the time of Miller?s arrest,
deputies confiscated 15 tractortrailer loads of merchandise on his farm and $120,000 from a bank lockbox, said Joseph Landusky,
his attorney.
Though investigators first thought the items were stolen,
they later learned that Miller had bought the goods at swap meets and flea markets. The merchandise and most of the cash will
be returned to him.
As part of the plea agreement, Miller signed over
a pickup truck and $37,000 to defray costs of the investigation, Landusky said.
"He?s
made a lifestyle of going to swap meets, and in that business you often deal with stolen property," Landusky said. "He
himself had nothing to do with the thefts of these items."
But
in the future, he added, Miller is "going to have to get something in writing ? or verify that he will not accept stolen
goods."
A convicted sex offender
from West Virginia said yesterday that he can't control his urges, then pleaded guilty to gross sexual imposition for exposing
himself to a Columbus girl.
Richard Scholz, 35, of Parkersburg, W.Va., was arrested in June after
customers at a Far East Side Meijer store helped police chase him down.
Inside the store, police
said, Scholz unzipped his pants and exposed himself to a 9-year-old girl who was looking at a fish display with her two younger
sisters. The girls' father was in a different aisle.
When the girl turned to leave, Scholz grabbed
her from behind, police said.
Yesterday, Scholz was sentenced to four years in prison by Franklin
County Common Pleas Judge Beverly Y. Pfeiffer. She also labeled him a sexual predator in Ohio.
"Your
actions are absolutely repulsive," Pfeiffer said. "I don't know what this world is coming to when parents can't
take their children to a store to look at fish and have to deal with someone like you."
The
sentence was one year less than the maximum. Scholz was given credit for pleading guilty and not forcing the girl to testify.
Assistant County Prosecutor Jennifer Rausch said Scholz tossed away a T-shirt he was wearing as he fled to the parking
lot of the store at 5800 Chantry Dr. He was found hiding in the landing of a nearby apartment building. Police said they found
children's clothes in his rental car.
"I did not go to the store to do what I did,"
Scholz said. "I hope one day in their hearts they will forgive me."
His defense attorney,
Joseph Landusky, said Scholz needs mental-health counseling, which he cannot afford.
"He
does not know why he gets these urges," Landusky said.
South Side resident was strangled last year during struggle with two neighbors
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Bruce
Cadwallader THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A Franklin County jury will decide whether the death
of a South Side man last year was horseplay or murder.
Richard Strojny, 50, was strangled in a struggle with two men
outside his home at 1086 Robmeyer Dr. on June 7.
Two neighbors, Michael D. Walters and William D. McKenzie, are charged
with murder in Strojny?s death. They are standing trial together in Common Pleas Court before Judge Patrick M. Sheeran.
A
neighbor who witnessed the incident said all three men had been drinking and that an old grudge might have led to the fight.
Defense attorneys Dave Thomas and Joe Landusky argued that their clients are not guilty of a crime.
McKenzie,
28, is expected to say he was losing a fight with Strojny and asked Walters, 35, for help, according to opening statements
yesterday.
"He said, ?Mike, get him off of me,? " Landusky said about McKenzie. His client, Walters, began
kicking Strojny and freed McKenzie. Walters fled when the older man went unconscious.
McKenzie stayed behind to try
to revive Strojny. Prosecutors and Landusky said it was likely McKenzie?s chokehold caused damage to Strojny?s throat in the
area of his larynx.
"Dusty McKenzie was just playing around," Thomas said.
Strojny was declared braindead
the next morning.
The victim?s 22-year-old son, Nick, who was sleeping inside, was awakened by a neighbor.
Nick
Strojny, a former highschool wrestler, said that three years ago, he was placed in a similar headlock by McKenzie and couldn?t
free himself.
