Pat Kelly Trial: Key points

The prosecution claims that any time cash entered the hands of former Sheriff Patrick Kelly, it disappeared and then he tried to cover it up. The defense claims Kelly is just a small-town sheriff who wanted to expand and modernize the sheriff’s office, but angered the Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI) in the Attorney General’s office in the process, causing BCI to come after him. Closing statements have been made, and the cases have been presented. To get an idea of who is arguing what, explore the key points.The scrapyardKelly received money for taking items that belonged to the county to McKee’s scrapyard and allegedly used the money for personal expenses. The amount he received was more than $2,000, according to receipts from McKee Auto Parts & Recycling gathered by BCI during the investigation. Kelly was also accused of stealing money from a cash box in his possession.DefenseThe money Kelly received from the scrap metal sales went into an undocumented cash box — separate from the previously mentioned cash box — which was used to pay confidential informants. Kelly testified that he had received information from a confidential informant that agents in BCI have been committing illegal activities and because of that he wanted to keep his confidential informants secret.ProsecutionNo documentation of any confidential informants was ever created or provided. According to witness testimonies of others who previously worked or are working in law enforcement, there is a procedure for documenting payments to confidential informants by using an identification number. Furthermore, Kelly was receiving money from scrap metals sales on an almost monthly basis, and several testimonies noted that paying informants regularly is not a common practice.The mealsIn count ten, Kelly was accused of using the county account — the Furtherance of Justice (FOJ) account — to pay for personal meals, which was not approved through necessary channels. The prosecution provided evidence gathered by BCI showing that Kelly used the FOJ debit card for 144 personal meals, 66 of which did not have the proper records and 10 of which did not have any documentation at all. Just the 10 undocumented meals totalled to more than $700.DefenseThere is no legal limits to the amount of meals that can be charged to a county account as long as the meal is professional. The defense also argued that the prosecution cannot prove the meals were not for business purposes, but that the prosecuting attorneys were merely speculating. He also made a point to clarify that several others had access to the account.ProsecutionIt is highly unlikely that many of the meals documented were for professional purposes, argued the prosecution. Aside from the meals that were not properly documented, many of the receipts cited reasons that were unlikely. The attorneys pointed out that he ate at Bob Evans almost weekly.The recordsKelly was charged with destroying records after he dumped over nine tons of materials from a storage space at the Athens County Fairgrounds and at Jobs and Family Services in Lancaster, Ohio — which included records, office desks, chairs and other office materials — at the dump. This was done during the BCI investigation, leading investigators to believe Kelly was doing it to disrupt the investigation, although it is unknown what was in the records. He was also accused of falsifying records. After being served subpoenas in August 2013, Kelly produced both physical and digital records pertaining to any money spent for confidential informants at a hearing the next month. In December 2013, BCI searched the Athens County Sheriff’s Office and Kelly’s home and found records that were inconsistent with the records Kelly provided.DefenseKelly just needed the space. The defense attorney argued several times that the only purpose of dumping the records was to clear up space. He also clarified that records, after a certain period of time, are typically disposed of in any public office. As for the falsification of records, the defense reinforced that Kelly complied with the subpoena and produced the records.ProsecutionHowever, as the prosecution made clear, there is a procedure to clear out records which includes microfilming each document to maintain the record in some form. Kelly admitted he didn’t make sure each record was microfilmed, but instead had photos of the records taken. They also made a point to mention the timing of both events, considering the destruction of records and the alleged falsification both happened during the BCI investigation.The campaign fundsAs for money for the campaign funds, Kelly was accused of misusing money raised during his campaign to be elected as sheriff. The charges include using money donated to his political campaign fund for personal use and not depositing or accounting for money raised during a spaghetti fundraiser. Another charge involved Kelly’s campaign manager Clinton Stanley, who Kelly allegedly told to deposit cash into Stanley’s bank account and later told Stanley to write a check for that amount to Kelly personally.DefenseThe defense argued that it was only Stanley’s doing, that he worked alone in stealing money from the campaign. During closing arguments, he claimed that Stanley’s character was flawed because he tried to steal the opponent's campaign signs during the election, but Kelly stopped him.ProsecutionIn response, the prosecution stated that Stanley would have no other motive to come forward and said Kelly had him funnel money to him through Stanley’s personal bank account. Stanley testified in court that he had written the checks out to Kelly personally, becoming the only witness to claim first-hand knowledge of Kelly committing illegal acts. The prosecution argued Kelly made Stanley process the money through his personal account so he wouldn’t have to claim it as campaign funds.The “kitchen sink”As the defense attorney liked to call it, the “kitchen sink” charge was the last of the 25 indictments and states that Kelly was engaging in corrupt activity, if found guilty of only two of the 24 other charges. The charge is based on Kelly “paying off” his best friend Pearl Graham — who helped him take the records to the landfill — by giving him money and copper wire and letting him use county property for free and on not providing the car titles to the vehicles he took to McKee’s scrapyard, but still having the ability to scrap them and receive money regardless.DefenseThe money was to pay him for the gas he spent hauling the records, the defense claimed. As for the copper wire, Graham admitted to stealing it from the landfill when they arrived. He also testified that the country property he uses— a tool called a Gator and a trailer bed — was only used for county purposes when Kelly needed help. The defense openly called the charge the “organized crime” charge, criticizing the prosecution for throwing any charge they could at Kelly to see what sticks.ProsecutionThe prosecution rebuttaled by attempting to undermine the credibility of Graham as a fair witness. They shared what he said, and Graham agreed he probably stated that “he would dig a grave” for Kelly if he had killed someone.Everything elseSeveral other smaller charges were brought against Kelly, including perjury for telling Judge Cosgrove during a hearing that he had given the state all the documents about confidential informants, but BCI later found a document he had not given them, failure to keep a “cashbook” detailing the money received by him in any official capacity and failure to complete a background check on two applicants for a conceal carry permit which he later approved. Kelly knew both the applicants as one was dating his step-son and the other admitted to being good friends with Kelly.DefenseThe defense claimed the missing document was not perjury because it was not purposeful. He explained that Kelly may have missed a document, but it was out of “all the thousands and thousands of pages of documents.” The “cashbook,” he argued, was kept but not in the traditional sense. Kelly wanted to modernize the sheriff’s office and so he kept his financial records digitally.ProsecutionIn response, the prosecution argues that Kelly only began keeping records of the money he received after BCI began the investigation. In some instances, this meant he was detailing transactions that had happened two years earlier.During the closing statements, both sides gave their final words. The defense claimed the prosecution could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kelly had stolen any money. They could prove he had not maintained documentation as he should have, but that in itself is not a criminal offense. They could not prove that Kelly had not used the money to pay confidential informants. ***Scott Wood, Kelly’s lawyer, claimed the charges were only brought against Kelly because he was a big personality and his office had been operating in political tension because of it.“Sheriff Kelly is a big personality. He has his own idea of what he wanted to do. He wanted to clean up the sheriff’s office. He wanted to modernize the sheriff’s office. He wanted to go after drug dealers. He wanted to do it loud, and he wanted to do it very public. He wanted to provide his men with the resources they needed to do their job. In doing this, he made himself a target,”  he said.Prosecutors summarized their case with the catchphrase “the truth never changes.”“The truth never changes. It doesn’t have four different versions. It isn’t confusing. It isn’t misleading. It doesn’t show up for the first time in the middle of a trial. The truth never changes. It’s not hidden from a county auditor, from state auditor, from BCI. It’s not hidden from your own county. The truth never changes,” Prosecutor Melissa Schiffel said.She also said they couldn’t prove he paid the confidential informants because his informants were dead. She also made clear that, according to Rex v. Smith, the jury can decide a verdict based on the likelihood the defendant committed the crimes.“What are the chances that this money, from all these different accounts, were used for a proper public purpose? Use your common sense. Whenever he had access to cash, it’s gone. And that’s what the lack of documentation proves to you.”