Updates from the Pat Kelly trial Wednesday Feb. 4.
Kevin Cooper, a special agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, was called to the stand during suspended Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly's trial Wednesday morning for nearly three hours of examination by Assistant Attorney General James C. Roberts.
Cooper said he was assigned to Kelly's case in late November or early December of 2012 — which later lead to a 25-count indictment served to Kelly in January of 2014 by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.
Cooper told the jury he was primarily asked to look at allegations against Kelly's mishandling of county money, especially after it was reported that Kelly had helped destroy nine tons worth of sheriff's office documents, which possibly contained important financial information, in May of 2013.
Following that allegation, the BCI obtained a search warrant to look through the sheriff's personal office and computer.
Cooper was presented a series of receipts from McKee Auto Parts & Recycling, dated in early May of 2013, which he told the jury had suggested that Kelly sold county property for hundreds of dollars worth of personal gain. Cooper said he and his partner had wanted to know what cash Kelly had accepted.
In June, Cooper received a call from Kelly saying that he had spent some of the money received from the scrapyard at Walmart, a local restaurant and on a friend, but still had hundreds left in his wallet. He told Cooper he would deposit the remaining money in the county's general fund, which he did on June 13, 2013.
Kelly also told Cooper that the transaction with McKee's was a one-time situation that wouldn't happen again, though BCI Special Agent Mike Trout had found similar receipts from the scrapyard in the sheriff's vehicle.
Cooper told the jury he eventually recovered documents, requested through a subpoena to McKee's, that pointed to Kelly receiving thousands of dollars in cash from the scrap yard for transactions dating back to 2009. Those transactions had not been recorded by Kelly.
A subpoena was then issued to Kelly in June 2013, which requested that Kelly account for of all of the transactions with McKee's. While Cooper was talking to Kelly in his office, he repeatedly told the BCI agent that he hadn't taken any money.
In a recording of that meeting, presented as evidence Wednesday morning, Kelly was heard saying "I can tell you where that money went."
Cooper said he never found where the money went, exactly. Kelly later presented the agent with a spreadsheet of dollar amounts and dates similar to the scrap tickets in August of 2013, though it had been created in July of — after the transactions had occurred.
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During a conversation with Kelly, Cooper said he had suggested the money was spent on confidential informants that assisted in drug busts. The identities of those confidential informants were requested by the BCI, to account for missing money in the sheriff's cashbox.
Sheriff's office employees are required to document their confidential informants, having them sign a document each time they're paid, Cooper said.
A document titled "list.PDF" was recovered from Kelly's computer during the June search warrant, created in January of that year, that was "closely related to monies missing from the cashbox," Cooper said.
Cooper told the jury that other sheriff's deputies appeared to be following the correct procedures for documenting their confidential informants, though Kelly did not provide similar documentation to the BCI.
In a recording of a conversation had between Cooper and Kelly in his office in August of 2013, which was presented as evidence in court Wednesday morning, Kelly told the agent "you're asking me for something I'm not going to give you or can give you."
Kelly also mentioned that Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson was demanding to know his informants. The BCI, additionally, demanded he provide the names and payments of his informants.
"We just wanted to find out where money went from the scrap sales and cash box," Cooper testified.
In response to the August subpoena, Kelly produced two public records requests to the county prosecutor and county auditor, and provided a list of the confidential informants in court. The names of the confidential informants had been redacted, and information in the document was still vague.
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Cooper told the jury the BCI was able to determine that the document Kelly provided in court was a combination of two files — an excel document titled Murders2009, and a PDF titled "list" — found on his computer during a previous search warrant.
The excel file was created in July and accessed three days before court.
The document had been created in July 2013, and was last accessed by Kelly three days before his hearing in September.
Cooper testified that the document appeared different from it's original state in July. A voice recording from the hearing was presented as evidence Wednesday morning.
In that recording, Judge Cosgrove asks Kelly if he had produced all the files he knew to contain information about confidential informants. Kelly told her he had no documentation outside of what he had presented to the court that day.
