This weekend is all about Ohio University students re turning to the college town they know and love.
But while you were gone, the Athens County Court of Com mon Pleas continued to deal with a side of Athens that most students — hopefully — don’t see, including homicide, forgery and rape trials.
On June 20, two local families changed forever after a homi cide.
Randy Richmond, 39, called 911 after he fired three times at a burglar, Keith “P.J.” Rutter, who was fleeing from the scene of a robbery, according to court documents.
Richmond pleaded no con test to one count of reckless homicide, a third-degree felony, and one count of negligent ho micide, a first-degree misde meanor.
He added, however, that he never intended to kill Rutter. He said he noticed Rutter carrying a knife and didn’t want him to get away out of fear that Rutter would return and cause harm to his family.
The charges sparked debate between Athens County Pros ecutor Keller Blackburn and Sheriff Pat Kelly over whether Richmond should be punished, depending on whether the mur der was considered self-defense.
The victim’s mother, how ever, begged in a statement not to let her son’s death be for no reason because she “was his mother, and I lost a piece of my heart.”
On July 2, one former OU stu dent was sentenced to prison for forgery and election fraud dur ing the November 2012 election.
Timothy Zureick, 22, pleaded guilty to 22 counts of false sig natures and one count of elec tion falsification, a fifth-degree felony, according to the Ohio Revised Code.
Zureick was sentenced by Judge L. Alan Goldsberry. His offenses could mean 23 years in prison and a fine of up to $57,500.
Trouble for OU students didn’t end there.
In 2011, an OU student was raped while under the influ ence of alcohol. Earlier this month, the perpetrator, Levi Canterbury, was sentenced to seven years in prison. The sentencing came almost two years after the rape, which a jury found Canterbury guilty of about a week before his sen tencing.
Canterbury, 23, was caught during the jury trials changing his story on the witness stand July 29, which is one of the rea sons the jury found him guilty.
After denying to police that he had had sex with the woman, he told the court on the witness stand that he did have sexual re lations with her — and that she initiated it.
A DNA test identified Can terbury’s semen in the woman’s undergarments.
