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Stories here are reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
Cincinnati gold digger held in husband's death
Female lawyer from Walnut Hills sentenced to year in jail for filing false domestic violence affidavit
Ohio Supreme Court rules a woman can't be convicted for violating her own restraining order
Ohio case considers whether abuse victim can violate her own protective order (by “kicking his butt”)
Restraining order did not apply to wife, justices rule
Woman accused in stabbing faces voluntary manslaughter charges in Cincinnati
Woman indicted for shooting ex-husband while children watched in Wapakoneta
Caught on tape: Cleveland woman tried to hire hit man
Canton woman accepts plea bargain after murdering her husband
Dr. Gulam Moonda fatally shot on Ohio turnpike, wife and accomplice convicted of murder
Donna Moonda sentenced to life in prison for husband's murder
Female Congressional candidate arrested for domestic violence
Canton Township woman says she shot boyfriend while he slept and then slashed his neck
Chardon woman(?) drags husband to death in swimming pool
Exotic dancer runs over customer and drags him under her SUV to his death
March 12, 1996, Cincinnati — Della Faye Hall Hoeffer Beyer Bassett Britteon Sutorious was the marrying kind. Five times she married, each time selecting a man younger or wealthier than the last. But now Ms. Sutorious, age 45, is charged with aggravated murder in the slaying of 55-year-old heart surgeon Darryl Sutorious. A colleague said Dr. Sutorious had been planning to file for divorce. [Source: Denver Post, March 12, 1996, and Dr. James Kline]
© 1999 by Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer
May 10, 1999 — A Walnut Hills lawyer was sentenced to one year in prison Tuesday for filing a false affidavit that resulted in the arrest of an innocent man.
Calling her conduct “reprehensible,” Judge Steven Martin told Doris Houser Allen that her actions warranted a prison sentence.
Ms. Allen was convicted last month in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on charges of perjury, tampering with records and tampering with evidence. She faced a maximum possible sentence of two years.
Prosecutors say Ms. Allen filed an affidavit on behalf of client Sylvia Huff that included false charges of domestic violence against Ms. Huff's boyfriend.
They say Ms. Allen told her client that the accusations would help her win custody of her children.
As a result of the affidavit, Ms. Huff's estranged boy friend spent a night in jail.
The charges against Ms. Allen were filed last year after the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a recommendation from the Cincinnati Bar Association to suspend her law license.
At Ms. Allen's sentencing Tuesday, Ms. Huff said Ms. Allen misled her and snared her in a legal mess.
“I want the court to know the great pain she has caused me,” Ms. Huff told the judge. “I can understand an honest mistake, but not once did I see any remorse. Not once did I get an apology.”
For 17 years I was subjected to the most horrific psychological abuse imaginable. If hell can indeed be manifested on earth, I've been there — for 17 very long years. As a result of the hideous psychological abuse, my self esteem was shattered, my perception of self worth was zero. I pondered deeply, searching for but a single reason to go on living.
The abuse left me unable to attend the court hearing for the final divorce decree issued March 16, 2000. The psychological trauma inflicted after 17 years left deep scars. But despite my not being able to attend, I believe the court had an obligation to represent me equitably. Because of the trauma I suffered, you only heard but one side of the case. To the court I was the bad guy, a deadbeat dad that didn't even bother to show up for his final divorce hearing.
Has a judge ever asked why a man doesn't show? I'm curious — or are all no-shows simply stereotyped?
The following is illustrative of my “marriage.”
During the course of our 17 years together my ex-wife unrelentingly abused me psychologically and sexually. She routinely withheld sex, at times for years, in order to manipulate me. Thus, the paternity of the children is in question. There was no immaculate conception here, to be sure. Since our marriage was founded on the “If you love me, don't touch me” philosophy, logistically, based on their ages, it is possible that I am not the biological father of these children. DNA testing is being initiated.
The court could cares less as to the paternity of these children. All a judge sees is that I failed to appear and, therefore, she won a default judgment against me. Nor does the court care to hear an after-the-fact claim of years of abuse. Due to gender bias within the court system, the judge views me as nothing more than another deadbeat dad.
I was humiliated for years. I was a total fool for letting her destroy my self esteem. So many nights I cried myself to sleep wondering what I had done wrong. I literally wanted to die.
I never once so much as even raised my voice to this woman, much less ever initiated any act of violence. However, the court again demonstrated the magnitude of its gross negligence by issuing a restraining order against me despite there never having existed any of the criteria as defined by the Ohio Supreme Court as grounds for such issuance.
I was hurt, I was devastated, but I was never angry. Nor did I ever say anything I regret. I can look at myself everyday in the mirror with total peace of mind fully knowing that during the course of this marriage I never did anything wrong. Never did anything wrong except committing to her in the first place and — like a complete fool — staying for as long as I did.
I've done quite a bit of research with regard to the disparity between how the legal system recognizes and reacts to domestic abuse between genders. There appears to be a glaring inequity in legal mechanisms available to partners when the abused partner is the male. The court, and the public in general, seem to not even believe the problem exists. I can tell you first hand...it does!
When the male is the one abused, public perception is “Just leave.” Just leaving is not easy when you love a woman despite the fact that she abuses you. Women claim they can't leave an abusive man for financial reasons, fear of physical retaliation, etc. The list of credible excuses women use to remain in an abusive relationship appears limitless. A man though, in an abusive relationship, appears to have no reason to stay since public perception is that the man is physically dominant and has superior earnings potential whether in the relationship or out of it.
Her abuse started on the night of our honeymoon, and worsened within the first two weeks of our marriage, but I remember every episode vividly. The first time was her standing there, screaming at me “I hate you! I fucking hate you!” This had happened before...when I questioned her about it later, she kept shrugging it off as “expressing her emotions.”
Her favorite way of attacking me was to start in on me first thing in the morning — literally as I'm lifting my head off of the pillow. Not nagging, not berating me for not taking out the garbage, but name calling, screaming, and swearing at me before I've even had a cup of coffee. I particularly remember one morning when, on our day off, I didn't wake up when she thought I should have. Even in my sleep I managed to offend her...
I could never do anything right, nothing I did pleased her. No amount of income pleased her. No home repairs were ever completed to her satisfaction.
Often she would viciously attack me verbally in the car. That was one of her favorite times, when I was trapped like a bug.
Another memorable event was one of the very rare times when she wanted to have sex. I was already stressed from work, plus trying to deal with my wife's constant rejection on her claims that “I was gross and disgusting,” “stupid”, “undesirable,” and a loser not deserving the pleasures of a “body as perfect as hers.” I just could not perform. She chose that particular time, a time of shame and pain for me, to start a screaming fit.
My sex life then became masturbation. It was either that or cheat. And to me, the marriage vow is the ultimate declaration of trust, so despite the abuse, during our “marriage” in my mind, no other woman existed. Even when reduced to masturbation for sex, it was her I'd fantasize about. If she caught me, the verbal abuse and humiliation were indescribable.
Through years of having “You'd never be able to get anyone other than me,” unrelentingly drilled into my head, and “You're a loser,” despite earning $50,000+ a year and owning a home, I came to truly believe what she was telling me was gospel. After all, I loved her and as such respected her opinion. I lost perspective on what the truth really is.
In a way, in fact in every way, physical abuse is a walk in the park compared to the mental abuse. Bruises eventually heal, and scars eventually fade, but the mental degradation I'll quite literally take to my grave. For years I walked on eggshells. I carefully couched my every word for fear of setting her off. She existed within a constant state of low-grade rage, just waiting for an opportunity to explode. I hear the degrading words over, and over, and over. It never ends. The psychological abuse will never heal.
My ex-wife withheld sex in order to manipulate me in order to obtain material objects. On our honeymoon, she rejected my sexual advances claiming “I'm too tired from the wedding, etc.” This set the tone for the rest of our marriage. My every advance was rejected.
When I asked her what was wrong she told me when we were first married, “I'm not comfortable in this small apartment. If we had a larger apartment, I'd be more in the mood and less inhibited.”
We got a larger apartment, still nothing changed sexually.
Then it was “If I had a new car, I'd be more comfortable and more open to your advances.”
She got her new car, still no change.
Then it was: “If I had a house...”
The house wasn't big enough, the neighborhood wasn't to her standards.
Finally I said: “We've reached and exceeded your every request, and still, you are unapproachable and you reject my every advance.” Then she told me what I'd suspected all along when she said: “I've never really loved you the way you love me. I've never felt about you the way you feel about me. I don't now and I never will.”
Life literally ran out of me. I was devastated, crushed. I was heartbroken. “How could you marry someone you didn't share an equal passion with?”, I asked her. Her reply,
“I thought you could support me financially at the level I deserve. I thought you could provide me with a solid future. But Bill, I don't love you the way you love me. And I'll never feel sexually about you the way you feel about me.”
“How could you so blatantly mislead me,” I asked her. To which she replied, “I had to look out for myself.” I told her I had wished she had told me that before she married me. And like a total fool, even after realizing the truth of the basis upon which our marriage was founded, I still loved her.
I was never the same after that. Our whole marriage was a fraud and based on a lie. She misled me in so many ways. The hurt nearly consumed me and certainly carried over into every aspect of my life, including my professional life.
So now, the pain has dulled and reality has set in. Hurt has given way to indifference. Now I want justice. I want the world to know that I wasn't the “bad guy” in all of this.
The author's email address is no longer available.
© 2003 The New York Times
May 30, 2003 — The trouble began two years ago, when Betty S. Lucas invited her ex-husband, Joseph, to a birthday party for one of their children. They started drinking and then fighting, and soon they were explaining themselves to the police.
The fighting was nothing new. Mr. Lucas had been convicted on a domestic violence charge the year before, and a court had entered a protective order for Ms. Lucas's safety. It prohibited Mr. Lucas from having any contact with her.
And so, a few months after the birthday party, the Licking County Municipal Court, in Newark, Ohio, ruled that the protective order had been violated — by Betty Lucas. An appeals court in Canton affirmed that decision last year, holding that Ms. Lucas had “recklessly exposed herself to the offender from whom she has sought protection.”
The Ohio Supreme Court is now considering the case, and some people who work to help the victims of domestic violence are nervous.
“This would have an absolute chilling effect on domestic violence victims going to the police and going to prosecutors,” said Alexandria M. Ruden, a Cleveland lawyer who filed a supporting brief in the Lucas case for three groups that help the victims of domestic violence.
The appeals court decision broke new ground, said Cheryl Hanna, an expert in domestic violence law who teaches at Vermont Law School.
“This is the first case,” Professor Hanna said, “in which a court has held that it's allowable for the state to charge a woman with aiding and abetting her abuser in violating a restraining order.”
Professor Hanna said the appeals court's decision reflected a larger debate about how best to keep the victims of domestic violence safe from their abusers.
On the one hand, she said, the criminal prosecution of Ms. Lucas was misguided and potentially counterproductive. On the other, she continued, the concerns animating the prosecution were appropriate.
“We have to be careful not to treat women who are abused as children who are not responsible for their actions,” she said. “Once you start treating women as irresponsible and unable to take care of themselves in the domestic violence context, you risk women losing their rights in a whole host of other areas as well, like reproductive choice and workplace matters.”
Ms. Lucas pled guilty to domestic violence in the wake of the fight with her husband and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Her lawyer, Andrew T. Sanderson, called the sentence appropriate.
“It was very much of a mutual combat situation,” he said. “It resulted in Ms. Lucas kicking his butt.”
But Mr. Sanderson took issue with the separate prosecution of Ms. Lucas for violation of the protective order. She pled no contest to that, and was sentenced to another 90 days in jail.
Both jail sentences were suspended, and Ms. Lucas was sentenced to two years' probation.
For his part, Mr. Lucas was prosecuted only for violating the protective order. He also pled no contest and was fined $100.
Elena V. Tuhy, an assistant law director in Newark, Ohio, who prosecuted Ms. Lucas, said she had no good explanation for why Ms. Lucas got a stiffer sentence for aiding in the violation of the protective order than Mr. Lucas did for violating it.
“Different judge,” she suggested.
Wendy J. Murphy, a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, said only Mr. Lucas should have been prosecuted.
“He's a grown-up,” Ms. Murphy said. “He knows the law. He's no more empowered to violate the protective order because she invited him than he is empowered to kill someone.”
Mr. Sanderson agreed, adding that the victims of domestic violence could not always be trusted to make the right decisions and should not be penalized for making the wrong ones.
“Women in abusive relationships are not always in a position where they're going to act in their own best interest,” he said. “The analogy I continually draw is between girls who get involved with older men. We don't prosecute them for aiding and abetting in statutory rape, no matter how worldly and solicitous they may be.”
Mr. Sanderson acknowledged that his argument relied on stereotypes. When the Ohio Supreme Court heard the case in March, he said, “some justices took exception to my argument based on that.”
“Their point of view,” he said, “was that these are grown-up people who should be able to make these decisions on their own.”
Through her lawyer, Ms. Lucas declined a request for an interview. Mr. Lucas could not be located.
Ms. Tuhy, the prosecutor, said the case demonstrated a commitment to the safety of the victims of domestic violence.
“We believe very strongly in the protective order,” she said. “We believe so strongly in it that we don't believe anyone should violate or encourage or help anyone to violate it.”
The appeals court's decision in the Lucas case is at odds with a decision in 2000 in a similar case by a different Ohio appellate court, in Cleveland.
In that case, a woman with a protective order against her husband called the police in on occasion though she often willingly stayed in his company. Finally, the police saw the pair in a car together and arrested the woman for complicity in violating the protective order.
The Cleveland court held that such protective orders are meant to benefit rather than harm victims of domestic violence.
“The city showed a certain degree of impatience with the victim in this case,” Judge Patricia Ann Blackmon then wrote, “and the arresting officer attempted to make the victim responsible for the offender's behavior.”
Bryan P. O'Malley, an assistant law director in North Olmsted, Ohio, was the prosecutor in that case. He said it was indeed the result of the frustration felt by the police there.
“If they come down to break up another fight a week after they cuffed a guy and dragged him out of there,” Mr. O'Malley said, referring to the police, “that's the circumstance in which they might charge her with complicity for inviting him over again.”
Brian M. Fallon, a Cleveland lawyer who represented the defendant in that case, said the entire area of protective orders was a tricky one.
Mr. Fallon described the prosecution by using an analogy to bring the victim of a statutory rape before a court.
“For the flip side of this,” he said, “we're kind of treating women like chattel.”
Mr. Fallon added that making women immune from such prosecutions could allow them to entrap their former partners by inviting them over and then calling the police.
“I've seen it abused,” he said.
Nancy Neylon, the executive director of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network in Columbus, said that should the Ohio Supreme Court uphold the lower court ruling in the Lucas case, it would require abuse counselors to give their clients warnings of legal ramifications of seeking protective orders.
“The practical effect is almost overwhelming me,” she said.
Ms. Neylon added that abstract legal principles must be tempered by attention to the messy realities of life itself, filled as it is with second thoughts, children's birthday parties and, sometimes, one beer too many.
“Stuff happens,” she said. “You can have a protective order, but if your kids are hungry and he says he's going to stop by with a couple of bags of groceries, what are you going to do?”
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
September 25, 2003, Columbus — In a ruling heralded as precedent-setting by domestic violence lawyers, the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday said people who seek protective orders barring others from contacting them can't then be charged with violating those orders.
The justices unanimously ruled that Betty Lucas did not violate a restraining order by inviting her ex-husband into her home for a party. Court records show Lucas got the protective order against her ex-husband, Joseph, for previous domestic violence. The two got into a fight at the party, and both were charged with domestic violence.
Betty Lucas, 35, also was charged and later convicted of complicity to violate a protective order.
The Supreme Court overturned a lower court's ruling and threw out that conviction.
Justice Paul Pfeifer, writing for the court, said the legislature intended for only one party — the person who the protective order is issued against — to be criminally responsible for violating such orders.
“The statute is devoid of any penalty for a petitioner who invites contact with a respondent,” Pfeifer said.
“To find appellant guilty of complicity would be to criminalize an irrelevancy,” Pfeifer wrote. “We hold that an individual who is the protected subject of a temporary protection order may not be prosecuted for aiding and abetting the restrainee under the protection order.”
Local - WLWT ChannelCincinnati.com
June 30, 2003 — A local woman was charged with voluntary manslaughter Monday. Dominique Bailey, 28, of Avondale, was accused of killing 24-year-old Donte Clay.
Clay was found with a stab wound to his chest inside a Reading Road apartment Saturday morning. He was taken to University Hospital, where he died a short time later.
© 2004 nbc4columbus.com
March 24, 2004, Bellefontaine — A woman accused of shooting her ex-husband in her driveway while his three children watched has been indicted on an aggravated murder charge.
Prosecutors said Helen Douglas, 32, of Ridgeway, fired a shotgun at Joseph Smith, 33, of Wapakoneta, on March 13 and then prevented someone else from helping him as he lay dying. Smith had just arrived to pick up the couple's 3-year-old daughter for visitation.
A Logan County grand jury on Tuesday also indicted Ms. Douglas on one count of kidnapping, a second-degree felony.
Margie Whittemore, another ex-wife with whom Smith had recently reconciled, was waiting in a van with their three children when Smith was shot.
Prosecutor Gerald Heaton said Ms. Douglas wouldn't let Ms. Whittemore get out of the van to help Smith.
Smith and Whittemore were married eight years, and their three children range in age from 8 to 13. They all watched as Smith stumbled and fell next to the van.
Helen Douglas had sought a civil-protection order in January, alleging Smith could be molesting a child. According to court records, Smith hadn't seen the 3-year-old since Ms. Douglas made those allegations.
On March 4, a judge granted Smith visitation as long as Ms. Whittemore supervised it. Joseph Smith was shot soon after he arrived for what would have been his first visit since that order.
Helen Douglas is jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail. She faces 20 years to life in prison if convicted.
© 2004 ChannelCincinnati.com
March 26, 2004 — A woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison Friday for trying to hire a hit man to kill members of her family.
Cleveland television station WEWS reported how a hidden camera helped to bring the woman to justice.
Alberta Payton took out an ad in a Cleveland newspaper for a bodyguard, but then attempted to turn him into a hit man by trying to pay him to kill six people. Some of Payton's family members were among those she wanted killed, WEWS reported.
Payton was caught through the bodyguard's hidden camera, which taped more than an hour's worth of evidence in which the woman described what she wanted done to the people.
The tape also showed Payton saying she wanted the hit man to “take out” a parking lot attendant who gave her a parking ticket at Cleveland State University.
Payton was found guilty on four counts of attempted felonious assault.
© 2004 Akron Beacon Journal
April 8, 2004, Akron — Sobbing throughout Wednesday's court hearing, a 38-year-old Canton woman avoided the death penalty by agreeing to plead guilty to aggravated murder and aggravated arson in the death of her husband last year.
Francine Sass, who had a history of arrests for domestic violence, waived her right to a jury trial, saying she agreed with and understood the pleas after being questioned for more than two hours by a panel of three Stark County Common Pleas judges.
Judge Charles E. Brown Jr., who was in charge of the proceeding, said Sass likely will be sentenced by the panel to life in prison without parole.
As Brown questioned Sass to ensure she understood what that meant, he asked her if she knew she was agreeing to life in prison “until your death.”
Sobbing, as she did from the moment she walked into the courtroom, Sass answered in a whimper: “Yes.'”
The case, however, is not expected to be resolved until today because of a legal technicality in a statement Sass signed. By signing it, she waived her constitutional rights as she was being questioned in formal custody by officers from the Stark County Sheriff's Office after her Sept. 15 arrest.
The point in question, according to proceedings in open court, was whether Sass fully understood her rights when she signed the waiver.
Sass, using gasoline, started the fatal fire on the morning of September 14, 2003, at the home she once shared with husband Christopher A. Sass in the 7500 block of Oakhill Avenue Northeast in Washington Township, authorities have said.
Christopher Sass, who had filed for divorce in April of 2003 — even gaining a protection order — was 34.
After Wednesday's hearing, Stark County Assistant Prosecutor Earle E. Wise Jr. said he expected Francine Sass would continue with her guilty pleas when the case resumes at 10 this morning.
Wise said he expected to call two witnesses, a sheriff's sergeant and a fire official from the Stark County Arson Task Force, who would provide details about Francine Sass' involvement in the fatal fire.
Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Perdue, Wise said, was expected to go over the details of what Francine Sass did and said as she signed the statement waiving her rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer present while being questioned by the officers.
Under questioning by the three-judge panel, composed of Brown, John G. Haas and Lee Sinclair, Sass said she signed the statement waiving her rights but answered “no” when asked if she “fully understood” the rights she was giving up.
During a lengthy conference between defense lawyers and prosecutors, Sinclair could be heard saying that the important issue was whether Sass was “of sound mind” when she agreed to waive her rights.
Assistant Prosecutor Chryssa Hartnett, addressing two family members of the victim's best friend after the hearing, told them: “We want to make sure the record is clear and nothing is going to come back and bite us in 10 years.”
Court records show Francine Sass was arrested for domestic violence twice — on October 19, 2002, and just five months later.
Abstracted from WPXI.com
A urologist from Hermitage, Dr. Gulam Moonda, 65, was killed in a shooting along the Ohio Turnpike on May 13, 2005, when he pulled his Jaguar off the side of the road to change drivers with his 46-year-old wife Donna. His mother-in-law, Dorothy Smouse, was also a passenger in the car.
Donna and her mother told police that they had stopped along the turnpike to switch drivers when a vehicle pulled in behind them. Donna said that someone wearing a hood robbed her husband and then shot and killed him. Donna and her mother both said they couldn't identify the shooter and they didn't get a good description of the vehicle.
However, a confidential informant told police that Damien Bradford, 25, with whom Donna Moonda was having an affair, was involved in the murder. According to the informant Damien and Donna met inside a Center Township rehabilitation center.
Investigators found that Donna Moonda is a nurse with her own criminal history. According to court documents in Pennsylvania, she pled no contest to a charge of acquiring a controlled substance by fraud.
It turns out she was fired from her last two jobs as a nurse anesthetist for drug abuse. She was escorted off the property at the Sharon Medical Center in 2002 after being caught stealing the narcotic Fentanyl — a drug ten times more powerful than morphine.
Two years later, she was caught again...this time fired from the Greenville Hospital. Once again, she was stealing Fentanyl.
Her husband was doing surgeries at both hospitals when his wife was employed at each facility.
Prosecutors later found cell phone records indicating that calls were made from Donna Moonda's phone to Damien Bradford's phone on the day of the killing. They also had tracking information from cell phone towers indicating that Bradford's phone was near the Ohio Turnpike when Dr. Moonda was murdered. Text messages from Donna to Damien on the day of the murder said, “You enjoy the beautiful day. I will text you when I can. I love you.”
Bradford later accepted a plea bargain and admitted he was the shooter who killed Doctor Moonda. As part of his plea bargain he agreed to testify against Donna Moonda in exchange for a more lenient sentence than the death penalty he could have faced.
Bradford's attorney Mike DeRiso said, “The shooting took place on the turnpike. There was a single gunshot to the right side of his face and that the wallet was handed to the shooter. Now, Damian Bradford is pleading guilty to being that shooter.”
According to court documents, police said the motive for the killing was money. At the time of his death Donna was trying to divorce her husband. Apparently she expected $3 million to $4 million in the settlement, according to an affidavit.
The Moondas had a prenuptial agreement when they married in 1990. The agreement said Donna would receive $250,000 if the couple split.
Gulam Moonda's will doesn't list dollar amounts for his assets but it promised his wife at least $1.8 million upon his death plus two insurance policies worth $684,000. Investigators said Donna promised Damian Bradford half.
During the trial Bradford testified to the cold-blooded plotting that was behind the murder of Dr. Moonda:
“I suggested she just take it. But she wanted what was deserved, owed to her. It was a conversation that turned into a plan.”
“I asked her why don't we do it when he comes home. And she said no, the neighbors. She said there would be another time when they were going to Toledo.”
“My job was to make it look like a robbery gone bad. She wanted me to shoot her, a flesh wound, but I was against that.”
He told the court he met Donna Moonda on the day of the murder and she gave him a map of the route she and her husband planned to take to Toledo. Bradford said when they pulled over, he walked up to the car and confronted Dr. Gulam Moonda.
“I told him to get out. I told him to give me the wallet. She handed it to him and he handed it to me. I fired and shot Dr. Gulam Moonda in the head.”
On July 6, 2007, a federal jury found Donna Moonda guilty of murder for hire, interstate stalking and two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence.
September 21, 2007 — Mercer County native, Donna Moonda, convicted of orchestrating her husband's death was sentenced to life in prison without parole in Akron.
Mrs. Moonda still denies she committed the crime. During the sentencing hearing Mrs. Moonda broke down and told the judge, “If I never met Damian Bradford, Gulam would be alive today. He only saw me as a dollar sign.”
At times trying to catch her breath through her sobs, Moonda said she admitted her marriage to Dr. Gulam Moonda was over but she insisted she did not hire Bradford to kill her husband.
Meanwhile, 26-year-old Damian Bradford is also going to prison for his role in Dr. Moonda's death. In return for a plea deal, Bradford admitted he shot Dr. Moonda at the request of Donna Moonda. Bradford pled guilty to interstate stalking and using a firearm during a felony. He also testified against Donna Moonda.
Bradford was sentenced to 171⁄2 years in prison. He is serving his time in a high-security federal prison in Atlanta.
Jim Kouri, Mens News Daily
Dan Sewell, Associated Press
August 14, 2006 — A Democratic candidate running for Congress in the Dayton area suspended her campaign following the arrests of her and her husband on domestic violence charges.
Sheriff's deputies responded to 911 calls about an altercation at the home of Stephanie Studebaker and her husband, Sam, on Sunday night.
Both were charged with domestic violence and released on $25,000 bond [Note the excessive bail].
A message on the Democrat Party candidate's Web site [web site taken down as of August 22, 2006] Monday evening says:
“Due to personal issues, the Studebaker for Congress campaign is suspending all campaign activities for the time being.”
Mrs. Studebaker, 45, a veterinarian and first-time political candidate, was running against Republican Rep. Mike Turner for the Dayton-area seat.
Sam Studebaker, 39, told deputies “his wife had been beating him.” An incident report says he had marks on his right arm and upper back.
His wife reported he had hit her. She also had marks on her right arm.
Both Sam and Stephanie filed domestic violence complaints against one another. Neither required medical treatment.
Abstracted from story by Shane Hoover, CantonRep.com
December 18, 2008
— Authorities say Andrea M. Carr, 33, woke with an idea in her head: She was going to shoot her boyfriend.
Ms. Carr told investigators William L. Polen, 45, was abusive and threatened her and her 12-year-old daughter so she shot him in the head with a .357-caliber revolver and slashed his neck as he slept.
She is charged with murdering Polen early on the morning of December 9 th and leaving their toddler son sleeping in an upstairs room.
On Thursday, Andrea Carr of 2523 Sherr Ave. SE in Canton Township, sat in Municipal Court and listened as one of the investigators testified about her statements.
Capt. Gary Shankle of the Stark County sheriff's office said Ms. Carr, after being advised of her right to remain silent, gave recorded statements in which she said she and Polen argued the night before his death.
According to her testimony, after the argument William Polen went to sleep on the couch and Ms. Carr went to bed about a half an hour later. Around 2 AM she woke and decided to shoot Polen. After she shot him she thought she saw him move, so she cut his neck leaving a 6-inch gash.
Ms. Carr then left the house and drove to a friend's home in Lodi. That friend convinced her to turn herself in and went with her to the Summit County sheriff's substation in Green. Local deputies were alerted and found Polen's body a short time later.
Sheriff's records show deputies responded to a series of domestic disputes this year involving the couple, at least one in which Ms. Carr and Polen were reportedly yelling at each other and shooting shotguns.
Records show Andrea Carr has a checkered past. She is a native of Edinburgh, Scotland. Court papers show she attended Oxford University in England where she married a doctoral student in 1996, then followed him to Ohio. They had a daughter together and divorced in 2002. After coming to the United States she attended college, enlisted briefly in the Navy, and worked an assortment of jobs, including as a volunteer Canton Township firefighter.
February 14, 2009 — Surveillance video showed Christine Newton-John, 41, pulling James Mason around the pool by his arms and legs, said Middlefield police Chief Joseph Stehlik
The chief said he counted 43 times in which Newton-John prevented her husband from leaving the water, and Mason rested his head on the side of the pool several times while gasping for breath.
“The video is bone-chilling,” Stehlik said. “The whole case is very sinister.”
The video would have had a profound effect on a jury, Geauga County Prosecutor David Joyce said. But that wouldn't have been enough for a conviction if Newton-John had been charged with murder.
“You can see the man struggling for his life on the tape, but there is no audio, so we couldn't hear what he was saying,” he said. [But one can be assured that a man would have been charged and tried for murder if he had done this to his wife.]
Mason had a heart attack on June 2, 2008, after the extended swim session. An officer who had investigated previous complaints that Mason was being abused pursued the case because he suspected there was more to the death, Stehlik said.
Ms. Newton-John pled guilty Thursday and faces up to five years in prison. No sentencing date was set. The motive for the crime is not known.
James Mason was a longtime friend of his wife's family. He knew her as John Vallandingham before she had transgender surgery in 1993 and changed his/her name in honor of the singer and star of the hit movie version of the musical “Grease.”
The couple were wed in 2006 in Kentucky, where people can change their gender on their birth certificate.
April 7, 2011 (AP)
— An exotic dancer convicted of killing a customer by running him over in her SUV outside his home and dragging him for a mile was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Kristina Hensley, 35, was given the maximum sentence by Butler County Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth.
The judge called the autopsy photos and report detailing Cho's death “ghastly” and said the court had no choice in the sentence, given the circumstances. He said Hensley didn't just hit Cho, 31, but dragged him to a “horrible death,” the Hamilton JournalNews newspaper reported.
Ms. Hensley told police she received a call early August 7, 2010, from her employer, Naughty Bodies, to go to 367 Timrick Place in Monroe, about 25 miles north of Cincinnati, for a private show. She said she arrived about 4:20 AM and that once inside, Cho touched her in ways that were inappropriate, according to the police report.
Ms. Hensley told police she left immediately, and Cho followed her out of the house. She struck him with her vehicle as she fled, but told authorities she didn't know Cho was lodged underneath her sport-utility vehicle.
However, prosecutors and police said Hensley hit Cho after robbing him. They also said she robbed another customer, Eric Nordhausen, in Blue Ash just hours before Cho's death.
Police said she drove about a mile to a gas station before stopping.
Kristina Hensley was originally charged with murder, aggravated robbery, theft and failure to stop after an accident. She was accused of robbing and killing Jae Cho, 31, Aug. 7, 2010, and stealing from another customer a few hours earlier in Blue Ash.
Kristina Hensley accepted a plea bargain February 18, 2011, before Judge Spaeth, entering guilty pleas to involuntary manslaughter and failure to stop after an accident.
Assistant prosecutor Brad Burress told The Associated Press that he was pleased with the sentence and hoped it would bring “closure” to Cho's family. In the statement of facts read by Burress, Kristina Hensley admitted to causing Cho's death after attempting to steal from him.
Ms. Hensley's attorneys had urged the judge to give her probation involving options such as community service or electronic monitoring, or to sentence her to the minimum three years in prison with credit for the 334 days served since her arrest.
They had told the judge in a memorandum that she had been the sole income provider for her three sons, ages 13, 8 and 7, and worked as a dancer because of economic hardship. They also said she didn't intend to cause Cho's death and had shown remorse.
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