Charges dropped against ex-detective in Warren

WARREN — Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court has dismissed charges against former Warren police detective Dewey Gray.

Judge Logan on Monday granted the dismissal, which was requested last week by Chuck Morrow, an assistant county prosecutor. Morrow said he requested the action after Gray passed a stipulated lie detector test — the kind admissable in court — that indicated he was innocent of the charges.

Gray, of Bristol Champion Townline Road in Bristolville, was accused of stealing a traffic ticket written by a Warren police officer for a Warren man, and improperly disposing of it. Those accusations led to a felony charges of tampering with evidence and theft in office.

But on July 23, Gray offered to take the lie detector test and prosecutors agreed push his trial back several weeks to await the results.

Morrow said Monday that a lie-detector test being used in this way to get charges dropped has been used “a number of times” in the past — and will be used again in the future.

“If justice is that a case is dismissed, then it is dismissed,” Morrow said, adding that Gray had the opportunity to take such a test before his case was presented to a grand jury — which resulted in his indictment — but he turned that opportunity down at the time.