Originally Posted - January 4, 2007

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ERIE COUNTY, OHIO---What's going on with the court system in Erie County?

Nearly four months after the adopted brother of Erie County Common Pleas Court Judge Roger E. Binette was charged with allegedly molesting two girls, there still has been no judge appointed to hear the case.

Donald C. Binette, 41, of Wellington, was indicted in September, charged with third degree felony gross sexual imposition for allegedly molesting a then 10-year-old girl on Sept. 16. He's been accused of molesting two different girls, ages 10 and 13, on two separate occasions.

Roger Binette, Erie County administrative judge responsible for the assignment of judges in the county, has removed himself from the case.

Apparently Erie County is more concerned about prosecuting a woman for allegedly stealing her own corporate vehicle and imprisoning her for having the audacity to criticize a judge and call him corrupt.

As administrative judge, Binette was also the Erie County judge responsible for assigning a new judge to the May 2005 charges against Elsebeth Baumgartner for charges that she stole her own corporate vehicle, felony fleeing and resisting arrest, all premised on a supposed outstanding warrant which so far, no one will produce. Although retired visiting judge Richard Knepper recused himself from the Erie County Baumgartner case first on Aug. 18 and then again on Aug. 21, after he revoked her bond in Erie County, Binette then delayed assigning a new judge to the Baumgartner case so that a bond hearing could be held or motions filed in the case.

Donald Binette had been scheduled to appear for a pre-trial hearing Wednesday but so far, nearly four months since the indictment, no judge has been assigned to hear the case.

So the hearing had to be canceled.

Dean R. Holman of Medina County, is acting as a special prosecutor.

In June, Judge Ronald Bowman sentenced former Sandusky police officer James Fitzpatrick to three years in prison after the ex-cop pleaded guilty to four felony counts of having sex with a minor. Bowman, who is currently the judge in the Baumgartner grand theft case, was assigned to the Fitzpatrick case by Roger Binette, former drug task force prosecutor in Erie County. Dean Homan was the special prosecutor in the Fitzpatrick case.

Binette also sentenced Michael Brummet to nine years in prison in June for two counts of first-degree felony rape, second-degree felony illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance and third-degree felony gross sexual imposition for the rape of a 15-year-old girl.

The grand theft charge against Baumgartner had been scheduled to proceed to trial on Sept. 5 but was postponed because Binette had refused to assign a judge to the case. Baumgartner served 45 days in the Erie County Jail where after Knepper revoked her bond, saying that she was guilty of engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. However, Baumgartner had never been formally charged with the crime, there is no accusatory instrument. She was never arraigned on the charge, has not appeared in court for hearing or trial and has not been represented by legal counsel in the matter.

Knepper had recused himself from the Baumgartner case days earlier.

The current judge in the Baumgartner grand theft case is Ronald Bowman. The arresting police agency in the Baumgartner case is the Bay View Police Chief of which Helen Prosowski is police chief.

A 15-year-old girl, the victim of a sexual assault by a police officer, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Toldeo against the Sandusky Police Department and police chief Prosowski, the same police officer who executed the warrant for probation violation against Baumgartner and tried to break the window the car in which Baumgartner was sitting and ultimately drove.

Prosowski is also employed as a full-time detective with the Sandusky Police Department.

The teenager was sexually abused by former Sandusky police Officer Fitzpatrick. The girl's attorney, John Swansinger, wrote in the lawsuit that "SPD systems were such that one of its officers committed at least 10 criminal sexual acts against a minor while the officer was in uniform, while he was on duty in broad daylight, at a police facility, in a high crime area, without anyone noticing".

Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to four counts in a plea agreement and Prosowski testified, asking the judge for leniency for Fitzpatrick.

He was found guilty of abusing the 15-year-old girl in a police station in 2003 after she met him in a police ride-along program. Fitzpatrick was sentenced June 22 by Judge Ronald Bowman to three years in prison, pleading guilty to fifth degree felony unlawful sexual conduct in order to satisfy the 10 counts against him. The girl had alleged that he had raped her on 10 separate occasions.

Sandusky detectives Prosowski and Mark Volz are accused in the federal lawsuit of showing favoritism towards Fitzpatrick by not pushing for rape charges. "They ignored undisputed evidence and sought special treatment for Fitzpatrick in an attempt to protect Fitzpatrick from punishment", Swasinger wrote in the lawsuit. "(Prosowski and Volz) recklessly or intentionally ignored the admission of the use of force and, so they could charge Fitzpatrick with the least possible crime, failed to ask about the element of force during his polygraph examination".

The suit accuses Prosowski and others in the Sandusky Police Department who arrested Baumgartner last May, the case in which her bond is now revoked, for failing to properly train officers in handling sexual abuse claims and allowing an environment where officers are afraid to report complaints against fellow officers.

Baumgartner has long maintained that there exists a protection of sex crimes by the politically connected in Erie County and that when she blew the whistle and brought forth allegations of such, that connected individuals used the criminal justice system, and the office of prosecutor Kevin Baxter, to retaliate against her. In one instance, she points to the deal that special prosecutor Daniel Kasaris sealed in the case of former Republican Erie County Commissioner Harold Butcher, then 69, a former school superintendent, who was able to plead to a first degree misdemeanor and receive 30 days house arrest for the stalking of a 14-year-old black girl in 2001.

During the prosecution of Baumgartner for contempt in Erie County, she said that Judge Knepper and special prosecutor Karasis became highly agitated when she stated on the record that she had been sentenced and had already served more days for contempt than Harold Butcher had served for stalking a black 14-year-old girl for sex.

Butcher had pleaded guilty in 2002 to a misdemeanor charge of menacing by stalking in a plea deal arranged by Karasis and Erie County prosecutor Kevin Baxter. In exchange for a guilty plea, felony charges of compelling prostitution for allegedly soliciting sex from the girl were dropped and Butcher, who refused to resign from his public post, was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest, fined $1,000. He was allowed to attend regular and special meetings of the commission and to go to medical appointments and scheduled meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous twice a week.

Baumgartner has been sentenced to eight years in prison in Cuyahoga County on charges including falsification, as Kasaris claims that her allegations are false.

According to the public record, Baumgartner's allegations about favoritism involving the prosecution of the politically connected for sex crimes appears to be right on target. 1-04-07

© 2007 North Country Gazette