Tag: ohio

SHOCK: Ohio Democrat Sworn into City Council Seat Hours After Arrest on Sex Abuse Charges Involving Children

Ohio Democrat Gerald Dixon was sworn into office for a second term on the Whitehall City Council on Tuesday, just hours after he was released from custody on his own recognizance following his arrest on child sex abuse charges. Dixon denies the charges.

The 64-year-old Dixon, who said this year he has been a Democrat since 1980, overwhelmingly won a second term to the nonpartisan Whitehall City Council Ward 1 seat in November with nearly 70 percent of the vote. Whitehall is a suburb of Columbus.

WBNS-TV showed dueling video images of Dixon at his bond hearing Tuesday and being sworn in just hours after his release:

Excerpt from the Columbus Dispatch report on Dixon:

A Whitehall City Council member charged with sexually abusing several boys since the 1990s is denying the charges and has taken his oath of office for another term in council chambers.

Gerald Dixon was arrested and charged Dec. 8 by Whitehall police, accused of sexually abusing at least eight boys since 1996. On Dec. 9, a Franklin County Municipal Court judge released Dixon from the Franklin County jail on his own recognizance as he was deemed not a threat to flee.

Hours later, Dixon appeared in Whitehall City Council chambers as scheduled to take his oath of office, having been reelected to another four-year term in the Nov. 4 election to represent the city’s 1st Ward.

Dixon has been charged with felony counts of gross sexual imposition and compelling prostitution. Whitehall police said Dixon’s arrest was part of a larger investigation and that he had been under investigation since 2020, before he was elected to City Council. Whitehall police were assisted by the FBI, police said Dec. 9 during a press conference the day after Dixon’s arrest.

WCMH-TV reported the case could go back decades (excerpt):

Police say they have evidence that a Whitehall city councilman spent years and perhaps decades grooming underage victims, leading to his arrest Monday night on felony charges.

Allegations that Gerald Dixon was grooming boys were brought to police’s attention in late 2020, with an investigation beginning in mid 2023, Chief Mike Crispen said Tuesday morning.

“The evidence is pretty overwhelming. And this started long before he was on council,” Crispen said. “I’m not sure if he was aware that we were looking at him, but certainly we were before he ever became a councilmember.”

At least eight victims have come forward, and police said they often exhibited signs of sexual victimization, both mentally and physically, which halted some to share their full experiences with Dixon. Dixon, 64, who has served since 2021, is facing felony charges of gross sexual imposition and compelling prostitution.

…Dixon is being accused of requesting victims to perform sexually explicit acts and of paying an underage, cognitively impaired individual to perform sexual acts. The investigation into Dixon stretched past Ohio into New York and Michigan, prompting Whitehall police to reach out to the FBI.

Dixon was arrested Monday about 6 p.m. without incident. During a search, electronic devices were found with explicit material and writings as well as drawings of young boys. Detectives described it as a “hoarder house,” Crispen said.

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Ohio Lawmakers Pass Bill To Roll Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Law And Impose Hemp Restrictions, Sending It To Governor

The Ohio Senate has voted to concur with a House-amended bill to scale back the state’s voter-approved marijuana law and ban the sale of hemp products that fall outside of a recently revised federal definition for the crop unless they’re sold at licensed cannabis dispensaries.

The measure from Sen. Stephen Huffman (R) was substantively revised in the House last month, but the originating chamber voted 22-7 on Tuesday to accept those changes and send the legislation to Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) desk.

The legislation now pending the governor’s signature would recriminalize certain marijuana activity that was legalized under a ballot initiative that passed in 2023  as well as remove anti-discrimination protections for cannabis consumers that were enacted under that law.

After the House revised the initial Senate-passed legislation, removing certain controversial provisions, the Senate quickly rejected those changes in October. That led to the appointment of a bicameral conference committee to resolve outstanding differences between the chambers. That panel then approved a negotiated form of the bill, which passed the House last month and has now cleared the Senate.

To advocates’ disappointment, the final version of the measure now heading to the governor’s desk would eliminate language in current statute providing anti-discrimination protections for people who lawfully use cannabis. That includes protections meant to prevent adverse actions in the context of child custody rights, the ability to qualify for organ transplants and professional licensing.

It would also recriminalize possessing marijuana from any source that isn’t a state-licensed dispensary in Ohio or from a legal homegrow. As such, people could be charged with a crime for carrying cannabis they bought at a legal retailer in neighboring Michigan.

Additionally, it would ban smoking cannabis at outdoor public locations such as bar patios—and it would allow landlords to prohibit vaping marijuana at rented homes. Violating that latter policy, even if it involves vaping in a person’s own backyard at a rental home, would constitute a misdemeanor offense.

The legislation would also replace what had been a proposed regulatory framework for intoxicating hemp that the House had approved with a broad prohibition on sales outside marijuana dispensaries following a recent federal move to recriminalize such products.

“In short, this bill leaves the crux of Issue 2 and marijuana access intact, while providing for several important public safety concerns and also regulations that protect Ohio children,” Huffman argued on the Senate floor ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Sen. Bill DeMora (D), however, said the legislation undermines the will of voters.

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Ohio Senate Expected To Vote On Bill Recriminalizing Some Marijuana Activity That Voters Legalized

A new law that’s likely to pass at the Statehouse next week would establish a series of minor criminal penalties for people who improperly transport or possess marijuana in Ohio, while rolling back legal protections for users in venues like child custody or professional licensing disputes.

For that reason, NORML, the oldest marijuana advocacy organization in the U.S., is leading a quixotic effort to ask the Ohio Senate to reject Senate Bill 56 before a final vote next week.

With the Senate’s approval, the bill would go to Gov. Mike DeWine (R) for a signature or veto.

The marijuana changes come within a larger package that also imposes a comprehensive, new regulatory system on intoxicating hemp, a product that’s functionally similar to legal marijuana but sold without the age restrictions, taxes or quality controls. DeWine, a Republican who opposed relaxing Ohio’s marijuana laws, has made a public cause of the intoxicating hemp issue for more than a year now.

But perhaps out of a political compromise, marijuana users have found themselves caught in the crosshairs within the hemp crackdown, according to Morgan Fox, NORML’s political director.

“A lot of these things are completely nonsensical,” he said in an interview. “This is recriminalizing a lot of behavior that is relatively innocuous and has been legal for some time.”

House and Senate lawmakers negotiated a final version of the legislation in a conference committee, which means the bill can no longer be changed. The House passed it last month, with a late-night 52-34 vote, where a handful of Republicans joined Democrats in opposition.

Committee members described the final version as a compromise between a list of scrambled voting blocs: Democrats who don’t want new criminal penalties for run-of-the-mill users, libertarian-minded Republicans protective of the right to grow one’s own marijuana, religious conservatives who disapprove expanding the legal use of intoxicants, local governments who want their tax money, a governor seeking a crackdown on the gas station hemp retailers, and both the hemp and marijuana industries seeking market advantage. (All told, 153 lobbyists registered to work on the bill as of August, state records show.)

In 2023, Ohio voters passed Issue 2 by a 57 percent to 43 percent vote, allowing for adults to lawfully use, buy, sell and possess cannabis. Those rights remain broadly intact under the bill.

However, SB 56 imposes legal penalties for things like possessing marijuana in anything but its original container or buying legal marijuana in Michigan where it tends to be much cheaper.

What follows is a closer look at some of those rules.

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Ohio Lawmakers Approve Marijuana Bill That Creates A Process To Expunge Past Convictions

Some of the tens of thousands of Ohioans dogged by dated marijuana possession offenses could clear their names under new legislation passed by the State House on Wednesday.

The bill would allow expungement, a legal process that erases prior convictions from one’s record, which can impair housing and job applications even years later. It only applies for crimes of possessing less than 2.5 ounces of marijuana, which voters legalized in 2023.

The expungement provision passed within larger legislation on a bipartisan 87-8 vote that sets new rules on the sale of recreational marijuana and so-called “intoxicating hemp” marijuana knockoffs.

More than 16,000 possession arrests per year in Ohio

For most of the 21st century, an average of 16,000 Ohioans would be arrested each year (not necessarily convicted), according to FBI data. The numbers began to fall in 2019, when Ohio first allowed for the medicinal use of marijuana, followed by recreational use in 2023.

While President Joe Biden in 2022 issued a blanket pardon for federal marijuana offenses, state level convictions have festered since then. The House-passed bill paves the way to expungement for many of those with convictions lingering on their records.

“If you smoked a joint when you were 18, in 2002, in your 40s, you should not have barriers to housing, or employment, or public services, because you got in trouble when you were 18 for something that is completely legal,” said Rep. Dani Isaacsohn, the ranking House Democrat, in a floor speech Wednesday.

How to apply for expungement under the bill

Expungements didn’t go as far as some Democratic lawmakers and the ACLU wanted. Rep. Desiree Tims, a Dayton Democrat, said in committee the bill should have an automatic expungement mechanism, or at least a system to notify affected people that the new option is available. Plus, the application comes with a $50 fee that some can’t afford, she said.

Rep. Josh Williams, a Toledo Republican and attorney who regularly champions expungement policy, said a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision effectively tied lawmakers hands on the issue and requires them to leave judges some discretion. However, he said SB56 gives defendants every advantage possible while still likely passing court muster.

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Ohio judge could face further consequences over Charlie Kirk comments

Judge Ted Berry, a municipal judge for Hamilton County, is closer to being removed from the bench for social media posts celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, thanks to a resolution filed by state representatives.

Among his other comments, Berry declared, with a clown emoji, “Rest in Hatred & Division!” He also claimed that Kirk “spewed hate & division.” Another post asked, “How’s he feel about gun violence and gun control in Hell, now?”

State Rep. Adam Mathews, one of the Republicans who introduced the resolution to remove Berry, has shared screenshots of the judge’s remarks from his own Facebook page.

Mathews spoke with The Daily Signal about his resolution, which he initiated with state Rep. D.J. Swearingen, a fellow Republican. “We have given the judge more than a month,” Mathews reminded, having called for Berry to resign Sept. 12. “And now to defend the courts and the trust that the people must have in them with an unbiased judiciary, we are moving forward with the process to remove the judge as outlined by the Ohio constitution.”

The removal process is laid out in Article IV, Section 17 of the state constitution. “Judges may be removed from office, by concurrent resolution of both houses of the general assembly, if two-thirds of the members, elected to each house, concur therein; but, no such removal shall be made, except upon complaint, the substance of which shall be entered on the journal, nor, until the party charged shall have had notice thereof, and an opportunity to be heard,” the section reads.

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Ohio House Passes Bill To Remove Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Protections And Restrict Hemp Market

The Ohio House of Representatives has passed a bill that would make significant changes to the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law by removing several protections for consumers while also adding a series of new restrictions on hemp products that are intended to align the two sectors of the cannabis industry.

After moving through several House committees this week, with substantive amendments, the full chamber approved the legislation from Sen. Stephen Huffman (R) in a 87-8 vote on Wednesday.

While the measure previously passed the Senate in earlier form it will need to return to that chamber for concurrence, or go to a bicameral conference committee, before potentially heading to the governor’s desk.

Certain controversial provisions of the bill as passed by the Senate were scaled back by the House, but advocates are concerned that it would still make major changes to the marijuana law voters approved in 2023.

Rep. Brian Stewart (R), who has shepherded the legislation through the House, argued ahead of the floor vote that the legislation effectively reaches a “carefully crafted compromise” between lawmakers with differing perspectives on cannabis issues.

“This bill has been very difficult to wrangle, but most of our substantive bills usually are. Rather than being some kind of mushy muddle of weak sauce tie-breakers, this bill does what we all claim that we wanted to come to Columbus to do,” he said. “It tackles the issue head-on. It makes tough decisions. It respects and implements the feedback from residents and advocates across the affected industries. This bill wisely balances between Ohioans’ individual liberties, their safety, the financial wellbeing of our local communities and the need to protect the health and safety of Ohio’s children.”

Rep. Jamie Callender (R), who sponsored marijuana legalization legislation ahead of voters’ approval of the reform at the ballot, said the bill is “not perfect” but argued that lawmakers “have to act” to address intoxicating hemp and other pending issues.

“This is the revised code we’re writing,” he said. “I anticipate there will be numerous other bills on these topics in the near- and long-term future, as there should be… I’ll keep working with everyone to make it better.”

While its supporters have described it as a less heavy-handed approach compared to the original Senate bill, the measure would make substantive changes to the existing legalization law—with several provisions that advocates say directly contradict the will of voters and represent overreach on the part of lawmakers.

For example, the proposal would eliminate language in current statute providing anti-discrimination protections for people who lawfully use cannabis. That includes protections meant to prevent adverse actions in the context of child custody rights, the ability to qualify for organ transplants and professional licensing.

It would also recriminalize possessing marijuana from any source that isn’t a state-licensed dispensary in Ohio or from a legal homegrow. As such, people could be charged with a crime for carrying cannabis they bought at a legal retailer in neighboring Michigan.

Additionally, it would ban smoking cannabis at outdoor public locations such as bar patios—and it would allow landlords to prohibit vaping marijuana at rented homes. Violating that latter policy, even if it involves vaping in a person’s own backyard at a rental home, would constitute a misdemeanor offense.

Karen O’Keefe, director of states policies at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), said in a letter to House lawmakers on Wednesday that SB 56 as currently drafted “eliminates essential protections from the voter-enacted law and recriminalizes innocuous conduct that voters legalized.”

“Please reject this erosion of freedoms enacted by voters,” she said.

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Ohio Lawmakers Advance Bill To Scale Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Law And Impose Hemp Regulations

Ohio House lawmakers on Tuesday approved an amended Senate-passed bill that would make significant changes to the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law while incorporating a series of regulations for hemp that are meant to align the two sectors of the cannabis industry.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee agreed to changes to the measure from Sen. Stephen Huffman (R) before advancing it to other panels and an expected floor vote on Wednesday. But while certain controversial provisions of the bill as passed by the Senate were scaled back, it would still make major changes to the marijuana law voters approved in 2023.

The measure will now go to the Rules Committee before being re-referred to the Finance Committee, after which point it’s expected to receive floor action.

“We’ve had years of testimony. We’ve heard from marijuana advocates, hemp advocates, public health advocates and everyone in between,” Rep. Brian Stewart (R) said. “We are generally going to take the feedback from the hemp industry, which said, ‘Treat us like marijuana,” he said. “They will have the same potency limitations, the same advertising restrictions, the same restrictions on quantities, serving size and how they operate.”

Rep. Jamie Callender (R), who has led the charge on marijuana policy in the House, said ahead of the vote that the revised bill would be “very thoughtful and targeted.” But at the hearing, he added that the legislation is “not perfect” or what he would have drafted.

“It’s a bill that can get passed that will help us implement some of the elements of Issue 2 that have been held up and give clarity to the rulemakers on some of the points that are outstanding,” he said, referring to the voter-approved legalization measure. “It also clarifies and cements a few of the gains that were gained over the years: Sharing, home grow, no new prosecutions [and] the taxes going to the local governments.”

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Cincinnati Police Chief Who Was Sued For Anti-White Discrimination Placed on Leave

Cincinnati Police Chief Terri Theetge was placed on paid administrative leave after she was sued for anti-white bias.

“The City continues to face serious public safety challenges that underscore the need for stability at the command level. Therefore, I’ve named Assistant Chief Adam Hennie as Interim Police Chief. Our focus remains on maintaining stability within the department and ensuring the highest standards of service to our residents. I have full confidence in Interim Chief Hennie and the department’s command staff to continue their dedicated work at this time,” said City Manager Sheryl Long, WLWT reported.

“Assistant Chief Adam Hennie has been named interim chief,” the outlet reported.

Recall that Theetge previously blamed social media after a violent mob of mostly black males beat a white couple at jazz festival over the summer.

Teresa Theetge held a press conference on the beating of the white couple.

Theetge said five people in connection to the mob beating were charged. She also blasted social media posters for their coverage of the mob beatings.

“The post that we’ve seen does not depict the entire incident. That is one version of what occurred,” Theetge said.

“I think by the irresponsibility with social media is it just shows one side of the equation quite frequently without context, without factual context, and then people run with that and then it grows legs and it becomes something bigger that we then have to try to manage as part of the investigation,” she said.

“Social media and mainstream media and their commentaries are misrepresentation of the circumstances surrounding any given event,” she added.

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Ohio Senate Passes Marijuana DUI Bill Aimed At Protecting Drivers Who Aren’t High Behind The Wheel From Prosecution

The Ohio Senate unanimously passed legislation last week to overhaul the way that prosecutors must prove whether a person was driving under the influence of marijuana.

Ohio, like most the rest of the nation, has liberalized its marijuana laws over the past decade, now allowing recreational and medical use of the drug in a variety of forms.

This has posed a tricky challenge of setting a legal standard that prohibits driving while under the influence of marijuana, while not ensnaring people who are sober on the road but have used the drug in the past few days.

And unlike with alcohol’s well established limit of .08 percent of blood alcohol content as the legal threshold for impaired driving, the science around cannabis concentration in the blood is far murkier. Some people with high concentrations wouldn’t exhibit behavioral signs of impairment, while some people with low concentrations would, studies show.

“The current law allows for the conviction of innocent people, 100 percent straight out,” said Tim Huey in an interview, who lobbied for the bill on behalf of fellow DUI defense attorneys.

What the bill would do for drivers of accused of being high

Senate Bill 55, if agreed to by the Ohio House and the governor, would bring two big changes for people accused of driving while high. For one, it ends prosecutors’ current ability to convict drivers for driving under the influence based solely on the presence of marijuana “metabolites” in a person’s system.

Metabolites are the non-psychoactive byproduct of marijuana produced as the body breaks down (metabolizes) marijuana. Those metabolites can linger in a person’s system as long as 30 days after use, according to researchers and defense attorneys who support the bill.

Instead, police and prosecutors must show the presence of Delta 9-THC, the active ingredient that produces the high sensation.

The legislation also gives people accused of driving while high an opportunity to rebut the evidence against them if a comparatively lower concentration of marijuana is detected in their systems. That’s opposed to the “per se” system in current law, where a positive drug test almost guarantees a conviction.

“Basically right now we’re testing inactive metabolites, mostly through urine, and it’s really not accurate,” said Sen. Nathan Manning, a Lorain County Republican and former prosecutor who has pushed the legal change for years. “The inactive metabolites don’t show impairment, it just shows whether or not you used it [in the past].”

Several sources described the legal thresholds set in the legislation as the product of more art than science, and a compromise between prosecutors and defense attorneys who lobbied the bill.

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Ohio Judge Blocks Governor’s Hemp Product Ban From Taking Effect

Ohio stores can temporarily resume to selling intoxicating hemp products—for now.

Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Carl Aveni granted a 14-day temporary restraining order on Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) executive order banning the sale of intoxicating hemp products on October 14.

DeWine announced last week a 90-day executive order that bans the sale of intoxicating hemp products that also started on October 14. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for October 28.

Intoxicating hemp products are items that contain THC that are sold anywhere other than licensed marijuana dispensaries including gas stations, smoke shops and CBD stores, among others.

Marijuana is not considered an intoxicating hemp product and is legal in Ohio. This ban does not affect the marijuana law passed by voters in 2023.

“While we continue to fight in court, today’s developments underscore our continued desire to work with the General Assembly to pass permanent legislation regarding intoxicating hemp,” DeWine said in a statement.

Titan Logistic Group, Fumee Smoke and Vape and Invicta Partners—all members of the Ohio Healthy Alternatives Association—filed a lawsuit last week against the ban, arguing DeWine is breaking federal and state law by restricting access to these products.

“Today’s decision allows thousands of hardworking Ohio entrepreneurs to continue supporting their families and serving consumers who rely on access to safe, legal, and properly regulated hemp products,” Ohio Healthy Alternatives Association said in a statement.

The 2018 Farm Bill says hemp can be grown legally if it contains less than 0.3 percent THC.

“The Executive Order is overly broad in that it applies to all hemp and hemp products including those that are legal under the 2018 Farm Bill and Ohio’s current laws,” the lawsuit says.

“It is also vague because there is no definition of ‘intoxicating hemp’ in the Ohio Revised Code or Ohio Administrative Code.”

DeWine—who has been calling on lawmakers to regulate or ban delta-8 THC products since January 2024—spent much of last week’s press conference where he announced the ban talking about the need to protect children from these products.

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