SIDNEY — Documents have been filed in Shelby County Common Pleas Court requesting that the guilty plea of a former Shelby County sheriff be withdrawn.
Attorneys for former Shelby County Sheriff Dean Kimpel filed the paperwork Thursday. The plea was to a charge of improper use of a computer in 2012. The request means Kimpel could be criminally prosecuted on the original charges.
His request follows the release of a subpoenaed recording from the Auglaize County Investigation report. The document submitted Thursday by defense attorney Kurtis Black, of Klein, Tombe and Eberly, of Troy, claims Kimpel and his attorneys did not receive the documents prior to submitting his guilty plea in April 2012. These documents included a recording of testimony by Jodi Van Fossen, who accused Kimpel of creating a hostile work environment and sexually assaulting her at her Wapakoneta area home in July 2010. The sexual battery case was dismissed as part of a plea deal.
This motion follows the daylong hearing on May 12 presided over by Judge James Brogan, a retired judge of the Second District Court of Appeals who was appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court to hear this case. Brogan allowed defense attorney Jeremy Tomb to file a motion to get the recording within 30 days and allowed Kimpel 60 days to file his plea withdrawal.
Kimpel was accused of and pleaded guilty to using the Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway (OHLEG) to illegally look up individuals for personal purposes. This charge of unauthorized use of computer, cable or telecommunications property is a felony of the fifth degree. He was sentenced to two years of community control and fined for the offense after he resigned as sheriff.
In the new motion, Black claims the recording would change the outcome of Kimpel’s trial drastically, stating Van Fossen’s testimony “cast the entire case in a new light, would have allowed Mr. Kimpel to impeach her credibility and would have significantly affected the proceedings.”
He further claims that the OHLEG violations were weak charges and a plea deal was reached only because he believed the sexual battery charge was going to be further pursued. The document submitted by Black claims Kimpel read an article on the Miami County Reporter Facebook page, May 17, 2015, that read, “The sexual battery charge was later dropped due to a lack of cooperation on the part of the alleged victim.” Kimpel claims this information was withheld from him and his lawyer, leading him to agree to the plea bargain.
The document submitted by Black goes into details about what the recordings contained. The document calls into question some of Van Fossen’s statements, calling them “inconsistent” and that the statements showed she was “an individual bent on character assassination, not the mentality of a victim.”
According to Black’s document, Miami County Prosecutor and Assistant Special Prosecutor Tony Kendall testified, May 12, 2017, and said he had gone through the Auglaize County file and neither the Auglaize County investigation report nor the recording of the interview with Van Fossen or any other recordings she provided were in the file. In his testimony, Black claims, Kendall called into question Van Fossen’s motives because she filed her report three days after losing her appeal to regain her sheriff’s office job. Kendall suspected ulterior motives that, he said, were in the “red-hot poker zone.”
Kendall further said that a case could not be intelligently assessed without knowing about the other report and audio video recordings.
Kimpel was placed on paid suspension from his position as Shelby County sheriff, Oct. 6, 2011, and received benefits and salary until his sentencing, June 8, 2016, which was an amount of $55,793.86. The county later filed a suit to get Kimpel’s salary back and lost in the Ohio Court of Appeals.
