A former attorney at the Athens County Prosecutor's office said Friday morning at the Athens County Common Pleas Court that someone would have to be “deaf, dumb and blind" to not know there was tension between suspended Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly and Athens Country Prosecutor Keller Blackburn.
The witness, Michael Prisley, who worked at the prosecutor’s office between 2011 and 2014, said he knew Kelly as a deputy and had “always gotten along with him."
Kelly's defense attorney, Scott Wood, asked Prisley about an investigation into three spools of copper wire that had allegedly gone missing during Kelly's tenure.
Prisley said he was called in to meet at the city garage in September 2014 with employees at the sheriff’s office and two Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents.
Prisley testified that, at that time, there was some tension between BCI agents and the sheriff’s office employees, although it wasn’t immediately apparent when they met at the city garage.
Prisley said the group found two or three 24-inch copper spools near the front of the garage and a larger wooden spool of copper wire further back in the garage.
He testified that the wooden spool was blocked by clutter and that it seemed unlikely that it would have been able to be moved by one person.
He also indicated that there were a number of fresh footprints and tire marks in the garage but that there was not a noticeable trail indicating that the copper wire had recently been moved.
The only indication that showed the wooden spool might have recently been tampered with was the that there was some new wood exposed on one section of the spool where the wood seemed to have recently been chipped off.
Prisley said it seemed like the spool might have recently been dropped.
Wood also questioned Dawn Deputy, the fiscal officer at the sheriff’s office, who has been employed there since December 2013.
She told the jury she thought Kelly was a “good sheriff.”
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Deputy testified that, when she took the position, she noticed several accounting policies at the office seemed out of place.
She said she approached Kelly about these problems and that he encouraged her to amend the bad policies.
During cross-examination, Assistant Attorney General James C. Roberts asked Deputy about the time she was questioned by BCI agents regarding Kelly’s alleged misuse of funds that he had received from the sale of scrap metal.
She said that to her knowledge, Kelly always reported funds he received.
The day after being questioned by BCI agents in 2013, Deputy said Kelly called her into his office and gave her the cash and receipts from the scrap metal.
Roberts pointed out that it took 33 days for Kelly to turn in the money, based on the date on the receipts.
Teresa Kirkendall, a former administrative assistant with the sheriff's office, took the stand next for testimony regarding allegations that the department had improperly documented expenditures and had failed to keep a cashbook.
Kirkendall told the jury that a subpoena issued by the Ohio Attorney General's Office requested the department locate and provide the cashbook, though employees were unaware of what that might look like. She said Deputy provided a picture of what the book might look like, though it was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, sheriff's office employees turned to a room that was locked and only accessible by the county's maintenance workers. Once it was unlocked, Deputy and Kirkendall saw several large books that looked like the allegedly missing cashbook.
Kirkendall told the jury that the book she eventually determined to be a cashbook had last been written in in 2005. She didn't know why the entries had stopped.
After Kelly was suspended from office in March of 2014, Dawn said she was demoted and was docked $14,000 from her annual salary by interim sheriff Rodney Smith.
During cross-examination by Assistant Attorney General Melissa Schiffel, Kirkendall said she assumed that demotion to be a "plan" on Smith's part. She said she didn't necessarily consider it unfair, though.
Kirkendall also testified that she wished she was still in Kelly's sheriff's office.
Becky Nulf was the defense's next witness, called to testify on allegations that Kelly had misused county dollars from the Furtherance of Justice fund and the Law Enforcement Trust Fund to pay for unauthorized meals at Bob Evans, Ponderosa Steakhouse and more.
Nulf is associated with the Athens County Explorers program, which involves teaching residents aged 13 to 21 the law enforcement system. She testified that Kelly had taken the "explorers" out for meals following parades and activities, and occasionally paid for those meals.
The defense brought sheriff's office Lt. John Morris to the stand next. Morris testified that he had been called by Capt. Bryan Cooper to the county garage to search for missing spools of copper wire, which Kelly had been accused of selling for scrap.
Morris told the jury that Cooper seemed jaded, and said "a lot" was missing from the garage, though nothing appeared off to Cooper.
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Morris recovered two small spools of copper wire at the garage, and one large spool, all near the Athens County 911 storage side of the building. He said he believed, at that time, that the BCI was conducting an unfair investigation.
However, five spools total were alleged to be missing. Morris said that two months ago, he found an additional spool of copper wire in the same area of the garage.
While being cross-examined by Roberts, Morris admitted he had gone down to the county garage to look for the wire a week or so before he went with Cooper and BCI investigators. At that time, he recovered the two smaller spools and intentionally moved them to be in plain sight.
All of the copper wire in the garage had been obtained through a routine traffic stop, Morris said, but had not been tagged as evidence.
Brynne Morris, records clerk at the sheriff's office, was called by the defense next to testify regarding concealed carry applications that had allegedly been issued without proper payment or background check.
She told the jury she had processed hundreds of these permits, and Kelly had never asked her to neglect a background check or fee. She testified that to the best of her knowledge, all requirements had been met.
The last person to be called to the stand Friday was Jerry Hallowell, the former head of the sheriff's narcotics enforcement team who resigned from office in 2011 after he was accused of having sexual relations with a confidential informant and misusing Ohio's Law Enforcement Gateway, a police database, among other allegations.
His case was also investigated by the BCI, he testified. He later plead guilty to three felony charges, and one misdemeanor charge.
Hallowell told the jury he considered Kelly a friend, and was put in charge of the narcotics division after he and Kelly agreed there were too many deaths caused by overdoses in the county.
Hallowell told the jury he would document confidential informants when investigating narcotics cases, but was pressured by the Athens County Auditor's Office to reveal the names of informants.
He also said Kelly had informants he was unaware of, but that there was an overall decrease in violent crime as a result of the department's drug busts.
Through his confidential informants, Hallowell said he heard allegations that a BCI agent was misusing narcotics.
"I try to stay away from the BCI," Hallowell told the jury, adding he didn't care much for the state's attorney general's office as well.
Kelly's trial will resume 9 a.m. Monday, Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove said, with an anticipated one to two days left in defense witness testimony. Following that testimony, defense and prosecuting attorneys will be able to give their closing arguments.
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