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Nasser Hamad, recently transferred to prison, appeals conviction and sentence
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
One of the lawyers for Nasser Hamad filed an appeal with 11th District Court of Appeals on Wednesday, asking that his aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder convictions and sentencing in common pleas court be reversed.
Hamad was sentenced to 36 years to life Nov. 9 after being convicted of two counts of aggravated murder and six counts of attempted aggravated murder for killing two young men and injuring three other people who came to his house Feb. 25 in Howland in a lengthy dispute.
Atty. Geoffrey Oglesby of Sandusky filed the appeal, saying probable issues to be raised are Ohio’s self-defense law being unconstitutional, Judge Ronald Rice not allowing evidence to be presented in the guilt/innocence phase of the trial relating to Hamad having post traumatic stress disorder, selective prosecution, ineffective assistance of counsel and insufficient and manifest weight of evidence.
Hamad, 48, meanwhile, was transferred Tuesday from the Trumbull County jail to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s Lorain Correctional Institute to begin serving his sentence.
Hamad, Oglesby and Hamad’s two other attorneys raised some of the issues mentioned in the appeal before and during the trial.
A psychologist hired by Hamad was allowed to testify during the penalty phase of the trial, after Hamad had been convicted of all charges. The psychologist testified that Hamad was experiencing PTSD at the time he shot the five and that it was caused by being attacked by the group and earlier conflicts involving his girlfriend and her family.
The appeal says Hamad has no money to hire attorneys to work on the appeal and asks for a state-appointed attorney.
A state prison spokesperson said Hamad will be evaluated at the Lorain Correctional Institution and either stay there or be transferred to one of the 26 other ODRC prisons in Ohio.
Also in the state prison system is Hamad’s son, Yousif N. Hamad, 29, who was sentenced to five years in prison in October 2015 after being convicted in Erie County Common Pleas Court on conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery.
Yousif Hamad was living at his grandparents’ house on Warwick Road in Howland at the time.
The Sandusky Register newspaper reported that Yousif Hamad’s charge resulted from he and Joshua Fennell, then 28, of Sandusky robbing an elderly woman of $150,000 in jewels in 2014 in a home invasion in Sandusky.
The two stormed her garage, bound her limbs with tape and robbed her of her custom jewelry, the newspaper said. The plot was orchestrated by Yousif Hamad’s cousin, Mohammad Hamad, then 27, of Sandusky, who knew the victim through the jewelry business of his father, Ahmad “Mike” Hamad, the newspaper said. Mohammad Hamad also worked for the victim at one time and worked for his father, the newspaper said.
Mohammad Hamad was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the robbery, and Fennell got three years.
In August 2016, Yousif Hamad was sentenced in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to six months in prison on convictions of theft, receiving stolen property and forgery. That sentence was to be served at the same time as the Erie County conviction and added no more time to his five-year sentence, according to Trumbull County court records.