Friday, July 30, 2004
Pratt will get just five minutes to present his argument, he said.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
WARREN -- The Ohio Parole Board has granted Michael Pratt's request for a full board hearing on the impending Jan. 2 parole of Michael Swiger.
Swiger, 36, of Tiltonsville, Ohio, has been imprisoned since his 1990 conviction of kidnapping with a gun specification and involuntary manslaughter in the death of Pratt's brother, Roger Pratt of Munhall, Pa.
It was 16 years ago when Roger Pratt was lured from his home in Munhall to Summit County, Ohio, where he was attacked and fatally beaten.
Authorities said Michael Swiger and his older brother, Edward, now 38, were involved in the murder.
Edward Swiger, convicted of the actual assault that killed Pratt, is serving 40 years to life for murder with a gun specification and kidnapping in the case. He won't be eligible for parole consolidation until 2029.
Required time
Michael Swiger was sentenced to 21 to 53 years and has been given a projected release date of Jan. 2, 2005.
Michael Pratt, of Warren, had hoped Michael Swiger would have to serve the full 21-year minimum sentence, which would have kept him in prison until 2011, but Ohio law at the time of the offense required offenders to serve only about eight months for each year of sentence.
Swiger has been in prison for more than 14 years and has met that standard.
Pratt said he hopes to persuade the parole board to reverse its decision to free Swiger in January.
He petitioned the board for a full board hearing, and a board spokeswoman said the petition was granted Thursday.
The hearing will be scheduled for late September or early October in Columbus, and Pratt said he will have just five minutes to present his case. Swiger will be permitted to have representation at the hearing.
Other convictions
If the Jan. 2 release date holds, Swiger won't immediately be free.
He will be taken to Pennsylvania, where he faces one to five years in prison for his role in a furniture store arson in Greenville in 1988.
His brother, Edward, also faces seven to 18 years in prison in Pennsylvania for that same arson, as well as a pair of Greenville burglaries and possession of instruments of escape during a brief incarceration in the Mercer County Jail in 1991.
One other person in the case also is set to be freed by Ohio in January.
Linda J. Karlen, 51, was sentenced to seven to 15 years for conspiracy to commit kidnapping and had to serve her entire maximum sentence.
She also will be sent to Pennsylvania to serve five to 10 years for the Greenville arson.
gwin@vindy.com