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Appeals court to hear 4 cases from Valley
YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals will hear four high-profile cases among 10 scheduled in an all-day session Wednesday.
The court will hear oral arguments on two Youngstown murder- conviction appeals, an appeal of a former Boardman chiropractor’s rape conviction, and an appeal of a high-profile zoning case involving a Lake Milton winery.
All 10 cases are from Mahoning County, and the appellate judges will hear them in their courtroom at 131 W. Federal St. The court will issue written decisions on these cases at a later date.
The court will begin its session with 9 a.m. arguments in Benjamin Beshara’s appeal of his conviction by a jury for the kidnapping, aggravated robbery and aggravated murder of his neighbor, Marilyn Guthrie, 61, of Niles.
Guthrie was kidnapped from her apartment complex July 10, 2005, and thrown into the trunk of her car before being taken from the car and run over by it on Parkcliff Avenue on the city’s South Side. Judge R. Scott Krichbaum sentenced Beshara, 35, to life in prison without parole.
Beshara’s appeals lawyer, John P. Laczko, argues that Judge Krichbaum erred by barring Beshara’s trial lawyer, Thomas E. Zena, from cross-examining a prosecution witness about a failed polygraph exam.
Laczko says also Judge Krichbaum erred by not giving the jury the forms concerning a possible complicity verdict on each charge. Lacz- ko also maintains that Beshara’s convictions were “against the manifest weight of the evidence.”
At 11 a.m., the judges will hear the appeal of Dr. Gregory S. Dew, 48, a former Boardman chiropractor, who was convicted of four counts of rape and two counts of gross sexual imposition and sentenced by Judge Krichbaum to 43 years in prison.
Dew was convicted by a jury of sex crimes committed between 1990 and 1992 against two of his female gymnastics students, who were then between age 15 and 17, before he became a chiropractor.
He also was convicted of sex crimes against two adult female patients in his chiropractic practice between 2005 and 2007.
His appellate lawyers, Richard G. Lillie and Gretchen A. Holderman of Cleveland, argue that the prosecution improperly used as evidence an illegal, surreptitious and warrantless wiretap by a Boardman detective of a telephone conversation between Dew and a victim.
They also say the prosecution failed to show evidence of force or threat of force with regard to any of the offenses charged.
At 1:30 p.m., the court will hear the long-delayed appeal of Robert E. Wilson, whose lawyer, Jana L. DeLoach of Akron, argues that he was wrongly convicted by a jury and sentenced to a long prison term for a 1992 murder he did not commit.
Judge Charles J. Bannon, who is now retired, sentenced Wilson, then 25, to 24 years to life in prison for the murder of his estranged wife, Tonya, with a firearm specification, unlawful possession of a dangerous ordnance, illegal gun possession and drug abuse.
Tonya Wilson, 25, died of a bullet wound to the back of her neck, which she suffered while she was in her car on Stansbury Drive.
Saying Wilson’s conviction was against the weight of the evidence, DeLoach cites expert trial-witness testimony that the gun found in Robert Wilson’s car could not have fired the fatal bullet.
Ralph Rivera, assistant county prosecutor, will argue for the prosecutor’s office in the Beshara, Dew and Wilson cases.
At 2 p.m., the court will hear a civil case involving a zoning dispute concerning the Myrrdin Winery, 3020 Scenic Drive, Milton Township.
In that matter, Jenifer Terry, township zoning inspector, argues that the winery is a business whose operation in a residential neighborhood is prohibited by the township zoning resolution.
Winery operator Gayle K. Sperry argues that, because it grows some of its own grapes on the premises, the winery qualifies as an agricultural- land use that is exempt under state law from township zoning regulations.
Some neighbors of the winery have expressed strong opposition to the winery’s operation, but the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation and the Mahoning County Farm Bureau have sided with the winery in this case.
Saying 95 percent of the wine Myrrdin sells isn’t made from grapes cultivated on its property, Judge John M. Durkin ruled the winery doesn’t qualify for the exemption.
In its appeal of Judge Durkin’s ruling, the winery is represented by Attys. John C. Oberholtzer of Medina and Anthony L. Seegers of Dublin, Ohio.
Arguing for Milton Township will be Atty. Mark Finamore of Warren.
milliken@vindy.com
The 7th District Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in 10 Mahoning County cases in an all-day session Wednesday, including these four notable cases:
State v. Benjamin Beshara, a 2005 aggravated-murder case, 9 a.m.
State v. Gregory Dew, a rape and gross- sexual-imposition case, 11 a.m.
State v. Robert Wilson, a 1992 murder case, 1:30 p.m.
Terry, zoning inspector, v. Sperry et al, a winery zoning dispute, 2 p.m.
Source: 7th District Court of Appeals