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Court overturns sex convictions of ex-Boardman chiropractor
The appeals court ruling cuts 111‚Ñ2 years from Dew’s 43-year prison term.
YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals has upheld Gregory Dew’s convictions for sex offenses against two of his teenage female gymnastics students long ago, but it vacated his more recent convictions for alleged sex offenses against two adult female chiropractic patients.
In making its unanimous, 39-page ruling Tuesday, the three-judge panel of the appeals court shaved 111‚Ñ2 years from Dew’s maximum consecutive 43-year prison term, reducing it to 311‚Ñ2 years.
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who presided over Dew’s March 2008 jury trial and imposed the original sentence, will soon resentence the former Boardman chiropractor in accordance with the appeals court decision.
The appellate judges found insufficient evidence to support Dew’s conviction for the rape of one chiropractic patient and for gross sexual imposition against another patient between 2005 and 2007.
In the chiropractic case, Judge Krichbaum had consecutively imposed maximum prison terms of 10 years for the rape and 18 months for the gross sexual imposition.
In the gymnasts’ case, the appellate court ruled the evidence was sufficient to support Dew’s convictions on three rape counts and one GSI count pertaining to offenses between 1990 and 1992 against girls, who were then between the ages of 15 and 17.
The offenses against the young gymnasts occurred before Dew, 48, of Kelly Park Road, Columbiana, became a chiropractor. He is now an inmate at the Trumbull Correctional Institution.
The appellate court also ruled that, under Ohio law, Judge Krichbaum correctly admitted into evidence a telephone conversation between Dew and one of his former gymnastics students, which was secretly and without warrant recorded by police.
The judges also ruled Judge Krichbaum properly joined the charges involving the gymnasts and the chiropractic patients into one trial.
The appellate court decision was written by Judge Mary DeGenaro, with Judges Joseph J. Vukovich and Cheryl L. Waite concurring.
milliken@vindy.com