LOGAN — With his scheduled trial date less than a month away, indicted former Hocking County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Caleb Moritz may learn on Friday whether two state assistant attorneys general will continue to serve as prosecutors of his criminal case.
That’s the day appointed Judge Randy Deering has set for a hearing, on the issue of whether he should grant a motion by Hocking County Prosecutor Jennifer Graham to terminate the special prosecutor appointments of Cynthia Ellison and Brad Tammaro of the Ohio AG’s office. Graham has asked that Deering replace them with her former boss, Vinton County Prosecutor William L. Archer, Jr.
Citing Graham’s motion, as well as the recent delivery by the prosecution of a significant volume of new evidence to the defense in discovery, Moritz’s attorney Paul Scarsella has asked for a continuance of his client’s trial, currently set for Aug. 19-23.
On Monday, Ellison and Tammaro responded to Scarsella’s motion for continuance, telling Judge Deering that they would defer to whatever decision he chooses to make on the issue. The special prosecutors also indicated in their court filing that the amount of new evidence given to the defense in discover is not as large as it may have appeared to Scarsella.
Judging by the document filed by Ellison and Tammaro, it appears that when they tried to email discovery material to Scarsella on July 12, the material did not go through because of technical issues. They are working on resending it, but in the meantime, they say, they have discovered that the latest batch of discovery contained many duplicates of files already sent to Scarsella, which they will leave out when they re-send.
On July 17, the prosecutors submitted 73 proposed instructions to be given to the jury in Moritz’s trial.
After Moritz resigned as chief deputy in early 2023, a joint investigation of him by the county prosecutor and sheriff’s office resulted in a criminal indictment, which was replaced earlier this year with a superseding indictment.
Moritz now faces two counts of intimidation of an attorney, victim or witness in a criminal case, a third-degree felony; one count of grand theft, a fourth-degree felony; two counts of corrupting another with drugs, a second-degree felony; one count of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony; two counts of unlawful transactions in weapons, third-degree felony; one count of forgery, a fifth-degree felony; and one count of theft, a fourth-degree felony.
The indictment indicates that both theft charges relate to property allegedly stolen from the sheriff’s office, in one case including an automatic weapon. The corrupting with drugs charges do not identify a victim, but state that the drug involved was fentanyl. The weapons charges allege that Moritz knowingly provided false information to a federally licensed firearms dealer or private seller. The forgery charge alleges that Moritz tried to defraud a business or businesses that sell guns with a concealed carry permit he knew was forged.
Email at jphillips@logandaily.com
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