Former Austintown coach convicted of possessing child porn appeals sentence

By Justin Wier

jwier@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The Ohio 7th District Court of Appeals heard arguments Wednesday in the case of Rex Bosley, a former Austintown Middle School girls’ basketball coach who was convicted on 15 counts of possessing child pornography last year.

Judge Shirley J. Christian of the Mahoning County Court of Common Pleas sentenced Bosley to 71/2 years in prison – six months for each count included in Bosley’s guilty plea, served consecutively.

Rhys Cartwright-Jones, Bosley’s attorney, appealed Judge Christian’s sentence, arguing that the sentences should be served concurrently.

The state failed to prove Bosley had a pattern of downloading pornographic videos and images involving children, Cartwright-Jones argued, and the “well over a hundred” videos and images state investigators found could have been downloaded in one file.

At a sentencing hearing, the prosecution said the videos and images were “likely” amassed over a period of time.

“‘Likely’ isn’t clear and convincing,” Cartwright-Jones argued. “‘Likely’ isn’t evidence.”

Judge Mary DeGenaro said the files depicted different children, which means they are different crimes. She argued that one video with multiple children is analogous to three people sitting in a car that is carjacked.

“I’m having a hard time not seeing consecutive sentences in this case,” Judge DeGenaro said.

Judge Cheryl Waite said that even if he downloaded several files contained in a zip file, it appears Bosley’s intent was to get multiple videos.

“It was one push of a button, but there were several things collected in his file,” she said. “He wanted several things.”

Ralph Rivera, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, argued the case for the state.

“Each image when you have multiple images, that’s the course of conduct,” Rivera said.

Judge Waite asked if Bosley knew when he clicked download that the hypothetical file contained multiple images or videos.

“Most likely, yes,” Rivera said.

Rivera argued that because Bosley pleaded guilty to 15 different counts, he is guilty of 15 separate crimes, which dictates consecutive sentences.

Still, Cartwright-Jones argued the government had every opportunity to use data from the files to prove they were downloaded separately and failed to do that.

“The word ‘likely’ is the only thing the prosecution gave us,” Cartwright-Jones told the court. “You just can’t allow that.”