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Chiropractor found guilty
The jury deliberated 10 hours before reaching a mixed verdict.
YOUNGSTOWN — An assistant Mahoning County prosecutor is calling for maximum consecutive sentences totaling 48 years in prison for Dr. Gregory S. Dew, the former Boardman chiropractor convicted of rape and other sex crimes.
“He took advantage of his position as a chiropractor and sexually abused his patients,” explained Natasha K. Frenchko, assistant prosecutor. The victims of his earlier offenses, committed while he was a gymnastics coach, were minors who were his students, she added.
“He’s talked his way out of things his entire life, and he thought he would be able to get away with this as well by trying to justify every bad thing that he has done,” Frenchko said.
After about 10 hours of deliberations, a seven-man, five-woman jury convicted Dr. Dew of four counts of rape, two counts of gross sexual imposition and one count of corruption of a minor.
The jury delivered its verdicts early Friday evening to Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who presided over the weeklong trial.
“We will ask the court to be merciful,” said the defense lawyer, Elizabeth Kelley of Cleveland. Noting that Dr. Dew has no prior criminal record, Kelley called for the minimum prison sentence, which would be three years if all prison terms would be concurrent at the low end of the available range. She also said her client plans to appeal.
After the verdicts were read, the judge revoked Dr. Dew’s bail, and Dr. Dew was immediately handcuffed by a deputy sheriff and taken to Mahoning County Jail to await his noon Monday sentencing.
Dr. Dew, 46, of Kelly Park Road, Columbiana, was convicted of only seven counts out of the 23 he was charged with in two indictments.
“The mixed nature of the verdict affirms the fact that they took time thoroughly evaluating each and every charge,” Kelley said of the jurors. However, she said: “Dr. Dew and his family steadfastly maintain his innocence.”
He was convicted of all five counts in the first indictment, which alleged illegal sexual contact with two teenaged female gymnastics students between 1990 and 1992 before he became a chiropractor.
That indictment contained three counts of rape and one count of corruption of a minor between 1990 and 1992, with that victim being a female, who was then between age 15 and 17. He also was convicted of a fifth count in that indictment, a gross sexual imposition against another girl in 1992, when she was 15 and 16.
One of the former gymnastics students said she experienced a feeling of relief after the verdicts were read but was not surprised by them.
The prosecution was less successful with the second indictment, where Dr. Dew was convicted of only two of 18 counts that alleged sex offenses against three adult female chiropractic patients between 2005 and 2007.
The jury acquitted Dr. Dew of all 12 gross sexual imposition counts against the first patient.
Concerning the second patient, he was convicted of one count of gross sexual imposition, but acquitted of two others.
The tearful second patient said: “I am extremely happy. I am glad that he can never, ever try to hurt somebody else.”
Concerning the third patient, he was convicted of one count of rape, but acquitted of two others.
milliken@vindy.com