YOUNGSTOWN Critics decry bond differences

One detective sergeant said he thought bond should have been higher for a suspect in a shooting death.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A municipal judge ordered that a Toledo man charged with assault pay $150,000 bond to get out of jail, after allowing a city teen-ager charged with aggravated murder to pay $5,000.
The differences don't stop there.
Judge Robert A. Douglas Jr. wanted the Toledo man, Paul A. King, 30, to be on electronically monitored house arrest if he posted bond. The judge made no such house-arrest provision for Wayne P. Gilliam, 19, of Castalia Avenue.
Gilliam posted $5,000 -- 10 percent of his $50,000 aggravated-murder bond -- within hours of his Jan. 19 arraignment and got out of jail that day.
The judge said Tuesday that he won't revisit Gilliam's case. People can second-guess all they want, he said.
"I have to look at both sides, make the best assessment I can," the judge said. Unlike in Gilliam's case, King's record "was significant," he said.
King's case: Police arrested King early March 2 on the Madison Avenue porch of a former girlfriend. The 21-year-old woman told officers that he kicked in her apartment door about 5:30 a.m., pulled her out of bed and threw her down steps. Police said the woman had no visible injuries.
Police had King's 2000 Lexus towed and held for safekeeping. The city prosecutor's office then charged him with assault and aggravated trespass, both misdemeanors.
At King's arraignment, the assistant city prosecutor asked Judge Douglas to set bond at $50,000. The judge made it $150,000 cash or surety.
The Mahoning County Sheriff's Department released King from the jail March 8. Clerk of court records show that King used A & amp;A Quick Release, a bonding company, to post the $150,000.
Mid-American Court Services then hooked King up to an electronic monitor for house arrest, said Dave Olsavsky of the Youngstown Municipal Court probation department.
Detective Sgt. Delphine Baldwin Casey, commander of the Crisis Intervention Unit, said she's pleased with King's bond and thinks the judge considered the totality of the circumstances.
King, who pleaded innocent, will be back in court Friday for a pretrial.
Controversial bond: Gilliam's low bond in the shooting death of 18-year-old Anton Flint of Forest View Avenue stirred controversy, from the victim's family to city hall to block watch meetings to talk radio, and generated letters to The Vindicator.
Gilliam's case was bound over to a Mahoning County grand jury in late January. The county prosecutor's office has yet to present the evidence.
An eyewitness, Javon Prieto, 17, testified at a preliminary hearing in municipal court that Flint had been a passenger in his car Jan. 14 when shots were fired at them on the East Side from another car, in which Gilliam was the only occupant.
"I thought from the get-go that Judge Douglas should have put [Gilliam] on house arrest for the safety of the witness -- and himself," Detective Sgt. Ron Rodway said Tuesday. "Flint's mother and the witnesses are still upset that he's out."
Judge Douglas said there's been no "shooting in the streets" or intimidation of witnesses.
Election challenger: Anthony J. Farris, the judge's challenger in the May Democratic primary, said they both turned up at the Sheridan Block Watch meeting this week and engaged in an impromptu debate about Gilliam's low bond. Farris said chills went down his spine when the judge described Gilliam to the group as "a fine young man from a fine family."
Farris said the disparity between King's and Gilliam's bonds reflects the judge's failure to consider the nature of the offense charged and safety to the community.
"That's his opinion," Judge Douglas said.
Judge Douglas said he didn't know Gilliam before court and does not know the family. The comment about Gilliam, the judge said, was based on what he heard in court from the defense.
Gilliam's lawyer, Scott R. Cochran, has said that the judge considered all pertinent factors, including that Gilliam turned himself in and has no criminal record.
Rodway said it's not difficult for a 19-year-old to have no adult criminal record. The judge said the state had the opportunity to present a juvenile record if one existed, but it didn't do so.