Pat Kelly’s trial hits week three and could wrap up in the coming days.
Visiting Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove said Friday that suspended Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly’s criminal trial could wrap up by the end of this week.
Testimony from defense witnesses should conclude by Tuesday, she added.
In Friday’s series of witness testimony, a former attorney at the Athens County Prosecutor's Office said someone would have to be “deaf, dumb and blind” to not know there was tension between Kelly and Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn.
The witness, Michael Prisley, who worked at the prosecutor’s office from 2011-2014, 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 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. He added the group found two or three 24-inch copper spools near the front of the garage.
The defense brought Athens Sheriff's Lieutenant John Morris to the stand as well. He testified he had been called by Captain 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 Cooper seemed jaded and said “a lot” was missing from the garage, though nothing appeared off to Cooper.
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.
However, five spools in 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.
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 pleaded 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 Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson to reveal the names of informants.
He also said Kelly had informants he was unaware of, but there was an overall decrease in violent crime as a result of the department’s drug busts.
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