Judge issues ruling in Dellick case


By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

A visiting judge ruled Monday that prosecutors cannot use prior instances of bad behavior against the son of Mahoning County Juvenile Court Judge Theresa Dellick in his upcoming trial in common pleas court.

Judge Michael Nunner ruled that prosecutors from the state attorney general’s office could not tell jurors about an incident between John Dellick and his girlfriend, Natalie Noday, on the campus of Youngstown State University in which Noday alleged Dellick held her against her will and threatened her and that they also cannot use three previous instances of road rage in which Dellick was a suspect but never prosecuted.

Judge Nunner said in his ruling that those “prior bad acts,” as they are often called in legal circles, would prejudice a jury against Dellick.

Dellick, 20, faces separate jury trials in December on charges of kidnapping, abduction and assault stemming from an incident in July 2013 with Noday in Canfield. Police said he agreed to meet Noday at a plaza, and when he arrived, he picked her up and carried her to his Jeep. A witness saw Dellick throw the girl into the car head-first, police reports said.

Dellick also faces two counts of felonious assault, a second-degree felony; two counts of ethnic intimidation, a fifth-degree felony; and two misdemeanor counts of aggravated menacing for an Oct. 18, 2013, road-age incident in Canfield. He is accused of ramming a man’s car, throwing a bottle at the man and his wife and yelling racial slurs at them.

In the case involving Noday, prosecutors wanted to use the YSU incident from November to show a pattern of behavior Dellick had exhibited with Noday. Dellick faced aggravated-menacing charges for that incident in municipal court but was found not guilty July 25 by a jury. Judge Nunner also noted in his ruling that Dellick already had faced scrutiny for that incident and was found not guilty.

In the case involving the road-rage incidents, prosecutors once again wanted to show jurors a pattern of activity by introducing two road-rage cases from 2012 and a third from 2013 that Dellick was purported to be involved in but for which he never was charged.

Again, Judge Nunner said that by allowing jurors to hear details of those incidents, it could prejudice them against Dellick in their deliberations.

Judge Nunner is hearing the case, and the attorney general’s office is prosecuting it to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest that could arise if a Mahoning County judge or prosecutor handled the case.

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