Prosecutors charged a convicted sex offender - once indicted for attacking a woman in Seigfred Hall - with two felonies yesterday for returning to Ohio University's campus with purpose to commit a criminal offense.
Municipal Judge William Grim ordered Oren R. Apple, 31, of 105-A Clark St., New Straitsville, held on $10,000 bond for entering Glidden Hall, the university's music building. Apple now sits in the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail.
Each criminal trespass charge could put Apple behind bars for one to five years and cost him $10,000. The complaints, filed in Municipal Court yesterday, don't describe what Apple did in Glidden Hall. University police Chief Andrew Powers said he didn't know who spotted Apple and couldn't release additional details.
We have been actively working with the prosecutor's office for some time now developing these charges
Powers said, adding that Sgt. Brian Kapple is handling the case.
In 2001, a grand jury indicted Apple for attempted rape and two counts of kidnapping for attacking a woman in Seigfred Hall. Prosecutors dropped the rape charge when Apple agreed to a plea deal.
Once released from jail, Apple found his way back to Athens and eventually settled next to West Elementary. That didn't sit well with County Prosecutor C. David Warren, who demanded Apple move at least 1,000 feet from school property - a requirement for people classified as sex offenders in Ohio.
Of nine sex offenders Warren initially asked to move away from school property, Apple had the worst record, Warren said in a February interview. Investigators later discovered many of the sex offenders didn't actually have to move and dropped their demands.
Apple, who did have to move, left the county entirely, relocating to New Straitsville, a village in Perry County.
In a letter to The Athens News published on Feb. 16, Apple said he felt slandered by media coverage of his removal.
I admit that I committee (sic) a crime and know that it was wrong of me to do this. I strongly regret assaulting a woman and I have great sympathy for the emotional damage I may have caused
Apple wrote. People who have known me for a time can say that I am far from being violent. I'm quite embarrassed about this ordeal.
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Dave Hendricks
