Decision delayed in murder case

By ED MEYER

The judge will await the results of investigations by YPD and BCI.

AKRON — A Summit County judge has decided to delay naming a special prosecutor to look into claims of compromised ballistic evidence that led to the April 7 dismissal of an aggravated murder case against a Youngstown man.

Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove of common pleas court said last week that she wanted an independent investigation of the case by someone with no Summit or Mahoning county ties.

But after discussions with Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh and Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains, Judge Cosgrove said her decision would be put on hold until the completion of internal investigations by Youngstown police and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

The results of those investigations will be reviewed by Walsh and Gains, and the appointment of a special prosecutor then would depend upon whether “any evidence of criminal wrongdoing is uncovered,’’ Judge Cosgrove wrote in a letter to the county’s administrative judge. She dismissed all charges last month in the aggravated murder case against Arian S. O’Connor, 30, of Youngstown.

He was charged in October with the 2002 kidnapping and shooting of Javan Rogers, 24, of Akron, after Youngstown police allegedly switched shell casings from the murder scene and an unrelated drive-by shooting involving O’Connor less than two weeks later.

The case was being heard in Summit County because Rogers was abducted from the garage of his North Portage Path residence on the night of Aug. 26, 2002, police said.

His body was found the next day on Youngstown’s West Side only a few blocks from where O’Connor lived, according to court records.

The motion to dismiss charges was made by Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Gregory W. Peacock in open court.

Peacock said the switch of shell casings occurred through “a convoluted set of circumstances,” and that he did not find out about it until he talked to a BCI agent while preparing for O’Connor’s murder trial in March.