Former Hamilton Twp. Lt. Det. Jeff Braley testifies in the murder trial of Ryan Widmer, who last lived in Mason. Braley, who resigned from the department, is now embroiled in a non-related civil suit. File photo
Update
The jury has found police in Hamilton Township illegally conspired to raid a party and violated residents’ rights.
MasonBuzz will update this story.
Janice Morse reports:
A federal court jury has told a judge it will continue working into the evening, after 10 hours of deliberations.
The jury, which is considering whether police in Hamilton Township illegally raided a party and violated residents’ rights, began with two hours of deliberations Thursday.
At last check late this afternoon, jurors had deliberated another eight hours without reaching a verdict.
Residents Mary and Ted Pritchard sued Hamilton Township officers, alleging that officers raided an adult birthday party on their property in 2007 under false pretenses, assuming the Pritchards were throwing an underage drinking bash.
After a half-dozen checks on the property revealed no violations, a police lieutenant asked one of his subordinates to have his wife make a phone call from her home in another county and report that she heard loud noise coming from the block where the Pritchards live. After that call, nearly two dozen officers eventually swarmed the property.
The Pritchards later learned about the call from an anonymous letter, possibly from an honest police officer troubled by that call, their lawyer said.
Police deny any wrongdoing; their lawyer says they were just trying to do their jobs and there was no conspiracy to raid the property.
Two of the Pritchards’ partygoers also sued the police, alleging false arrest. Their charges were eventually dismissed but both had to hire lawyers.
Zachary Christman was then 18 and was charged with underage consumption even though he was drinking under his father’s supervision on private property, which is allowed under Ohio law.
Kevin Clark, then 21, was arrested for disorderly conduct after he used his cell phone to check a text message after an officer ordered him to stop using his phone to videotape the raid.
The plaintiffs have not specified an amount of monetary damages they are seeking.
The defendants in the case include the estate of the now-deceased Hamilton Township police chief, Frank Richardson, as well as a current officer, Lt. Phil Johnson and former officers Roger Gilbert and Jeff Braley.
Braley was then a detective lieutenant but resigned last year after controversy over his employment credentials surfaced in an offshoot from the Ryan Widmer murder case. Braley was the lead detective in that case, which ended with Widmer being convicted of murder in the 2008 bathtub drowning of his newlywed wife, Sarah, 24.
Widmer, who last lived in Mason, is now serving 15 years to life in prison.
Several of Widmer’s suppporters came to court to listen to Braley’s testimony and observe the trial, which began Monday.
Posted in: News, Widmer Trial |
