220 Ohio inmates will get new parole hearings

CLEVELAND (AP) — About 220 Ohio prison inmates are getting new parole hearings after a court ruling early this year, and it’s causing angst among crime victims who worry their attackers may win early releases.

A parole official says the order for new hearings is a technical matter that doesn’t mean the prisoners will be released. Yet, victims are concerned.

Phyllis Cottle, 69, believed that the man who raped and beat her and would not be allowed another parole hearing until 2014. Now, the thought of parole for him this year angers and scares her.

“As I understand it, the last parole decision on him is null and void. It makes me angry. Rehabilitation is not an option for him,” Cottle said Wednesday in a telephone interview from her home in Cuyahoga Falls, an Akron suburb about 30 miles south of Cleveland.

“There’s no way I can handle him being released. I’m fine just so long as he is in prison,” she said.

The Associated Press generally guards the identity of rape victims. However, Cottle gave the AP permission Wednesday to be identified. She also was quoted in The Akron Beacon Journal.

A judge ruled earlier this year that the inmates might not have gotten a fair hearing previously.

Cynthia Mausser, chairwoman of the Ohio Parole Board, said the new hearings are being held to apply parole guidelines the way the judge, in Franklin County, determined they should be applied in an inmates’ class-action lawsuit.

It doesn’t mean circumstances that led to a parole being denied have changed, she said.

“The way the [parole] guidelines were applied to some of these inmates previously made it appear as if we were replacing our ranges for the minimum sentence imposed by the court, which was deemed impermissible,” Mausser said.

Cottle said she plans to meet with a hearing officer in Cleveland.

“I can talk about why he should not be granted parole,” Cottle said. “I’m in a prison of darkness the rest of my life.”

Cottle was attacked March 20, 1984, in Akron. She was forced into her car, raped, robbed, beaten and stabbed in her eyes.

Cottle said she was surprised when she received a letter from the state’s Office of Victim Services that the case of her convicted attacker, Samuel Herring, will take place in September.

Herring had parole hearings in 1994 and 2004. In previous hearings the parole board was unanimous in its decision not to release Herring.

Herring, who turns 53 this month, was sentenced to 169 to 290 years in prison.

Mausser said the state’s victim services office is trying to help victims who may be concerned about new hearings.

“Victim services is there to help them through it and to understand this does not equate to a release. It’s a hearing, and we will consider all information,” she said.