Prosecutor Files Motion with Justices; Former Pastor Sues Sheriff's Detective
By Russ Zimmer
The Advocate
April 4, 2008
http://www.centralohio.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/BF/20080404/NEWS01/804040303/1002
NEWARK -- An order by the Ohio Supreme Court prevented Licking County Prosecutor Ken Oswalt from highlighting the differences between a high court decision and the case of a Hebron pastor convicted of sexual abuse, Oswalt said in a court filing.
The high court vacated the November 2006 guilty plea of Lonny "Joe" Aleshire Jr. last week, citing its ruling earlier this year that the failure to inform a defendant of mandatory post-release control at the time a guilty plea is entered is grounds to invalidate that plea.
Aleshire, a former associate pastor at Licking Baptist Church, Hebron, pleaded guilty to 10 sex charges, including rape, claiming he engaged in sexual conduct with two sisters beginning in 2003. Both were underage parishioners at the time.
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Oswalt, in a motion to reconsider filed Wednesday with the Supreme Court, stated the court halted the briefing schedule in Aleshire's appeal pending a result in State v. Sarkozy.
Once the Sarkozy case was decided, the court -- without permitting any briefing or oral argument -- remanded Aleshire's case to Licking County for a new trial, Oswalt wrote.
Aleshire's appeal was based upon a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, filed almost a year after his conviction, because of legal advice he believed to be misleading and the trial court's failure to inform him of the mandatory post-release control period of five years.
Oswalt argues in the motion that differences, including the timing of Aleshire's motion and the level to which he was informed of the parole term, set his case apart from Sarkozy's.
Oswalt is asking the justices to consider allowing both sides to present arguments in front of the Ohio Supreme Court, the Fifth District Court of Appeals or Common Pleas Judge Jon Spahr.
If the case moves forward as it stands now, Oswalt said Wednesday that Aleshire would be brought back to the Licking County Justice Center and possibly could have a chance to bond out.
Aleshire has been active filing motions in his reopened criminal case, but in the past month he also has filed a lawsuit seeking the arrest of a Licking County Sheriff's Office detective.
He claims the detective criminally omitted statements, including what Aleshire thinks were changing stories, during the investigation.
In a March 17 letter to Aleshire, who currently is in the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, Oswalt states the motion for a probable cause hearing likely is another means for Aleshire to raise questions of a conviction he accepted under oath.
"It seems very difficult for me to accept the claims you want to make about others who supposedly recanted this allegation, or wrote this incompletely in their report, without knowing that you want to do precisely the same thing," he wrote.
A lawsuit filed by Aleshire's family against trial lawyer Samuel Shamansky was dismissed March 7 by Common Pleas Judge Thomas Marcelain.
Russ Zimmer can be reached at (740) 328-8548 or razimmer@newarkadvocate.com.
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