Thursday, June 21, 2012
By John Caniglia
Cleveland Plain Dealer
CHARDON
T.J. Lane has avoided a Geauga County jail cell, as someone on his behalf is paying about $120 a day to keep him in a Ravenna youth facility as he awaits trial in the slayings of three students at Chardon High School and the shooting of three others Feb. 27.
Lane, 17, was to be moved from the Portage-Geauga Juvenile Detention Center this week to the Geauga County Safety Center, where adults are held. However, Common Pleas Judge David Fuhry ruled that Lane can remain at the youth center but that he is responsible for paying the daily costs of detention. It is unclear who is paying.
Thomas Rehnert, the superintendent of the youth facility in Ravenna, put the cost at about $120 a day. In most county jails in Ohio, it costs about $80 a day to house an inmate. The difference in costs often stems from the amount of services, such as counseling and schooling, needed for youths.
Defense attorneys Mark DeVan and Ian Friedman had filed a motion under seal to keep Lane at the youth-detention center, and Fuhry later agreed.
Lane was indicted this month on three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of felonious assault. The indictment came just weeks after Lane was bound over from juvenile court to adult court. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole. A trial date has not been set.
The case will hinge on Lane’s sanity at the time of the shootings. DeVan and Friedman said in court this month that they expect to file pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity.
A police report said Lane admitted firing 10 shots from a .22-caliber semiautomatic Ruger handgun, a weapon he told authorities he had obtained from an uncle’s home the night before the shooting. Demetrius Hewlin, 16; Russell King Jr., 17; and Daniel Parmertor, 16, were killed.
Two other students were shot: Joy Rickers has been released from the hospital, while Nick Walczak is undergoing rehabilitation to recover from his wounds. A sixth student, Nate Mueller, was grazed on the ear by a bullet.
After his arrest, Lane told a deputy sheriff that he had “killed a bunch of people” but that he didn’t know why he fired the shots, according to testimony at a hearing in May.
Also this week, Fuhry addressed Lane’s $1 million bond. The judge wrote that if Lane or his someone on his behalf is able to post the amount, the youth immediately would be taken from the youth facility to a mental-health facility for treatment.
If Lane should no longer require mental-health treatment, he would be transported back to the youth facility.