Friday, June 20, 2014
Staff report
WARREN
Another pretrial hearing took place Thursday in the misdemeanor criminal charge filed against state representative and candidate for Ohio Supreme Court Thomas Letson.
Letson of Warren, D-64th, who faces Republican Justice Sharon Kennedy in November for supreme court justice, will file a motion withdrawing his motion to dismiss the case, said Tracy Timko-Rose, assistant Warren law director.
Little else took place during the pretrial hearing in the judge’s chambers in Warren Municipal Court with visiting Judge Barbara Watson of Portage County, Timko-Rose said.
Another pretrial hearing will be scheduled in September, but the date has not been set.
Letson is charged with a zoning violation for purportedly operating a rooming house, or “sober house” for recovering alcoholics, at a home he owns on Foster Street Northeast in an area zoned residential.
Letson, an attorney, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, saying that enforcing Warren’s zoning law would discriminate against people with disabilities, such as alcoholism.
Timko-Rose said Thursday she only heard from HUD one time regarding information it sought, and she doesn’t know whether HUD’s investigation of the matter will affect the outcome of the criminal case.
The HUD complaint will have to be resolved before she can go forward with the criminal case, she said.
If it is determined that the home is being used as a sober house, that could end up being a legal use, but no one has ever applied to the city for that type of use, Timko-Rose said.