By Jennifer Edwards Baker
Published: Jul. 16, 2024 at 4:17 AM EDT|Updated: Jul. 16, 2024 at 4:31 AM EDT
HAMILTON, Ohio (WXIX) - The most serious charges have been dropped against a teen once accused of bringing drugs and a cell phone into inmates - including one who killed a store owner during a robbery - while she was working as an intern at the Butler County Jail.
The girl was 17 at the time of the alleged crimes so her case is being handled in county juvenile court.
Her trial was scheduled to begin Monday but was delayed until September.
Her lawyer wants the judge to ban the media from covering her case. and plans to file a formal motion seeking that in the next week.
The teen, who is now 18 and legally an adult, originally was charged with three felony counts of illegal conveyance of weapons, drugs, or other prohibited items onto the grounds of a detention facility or institution, but prosecutors dropped those.
She is still charged with two misdemeanor counts, obstructing official business and disorderly conduct.
Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser declined Monday to explain why his office abandoned the most serious charges against her.
He said he would explain once the case was over.
According to a copy of her criminal complaint, the teen admitted to taking marijuana and ecstasy into the jail in Hamilton on or about March 1.
The crimes were reported three days later to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, an incident report shows.
Her attorney asked a juvenile court judge to throw out her statements, alleging she was “coerced” into making them in violation of her constitutional rights, but that motion was denied during a June hearing.
The teen, who has turned 18 since she was arrested, was released from the Butler County Juvenile Detention Center and put on electronically monitored house arrest.
Her internship was through Butler Tech’s criminal justice program, according to the sheriff’s office.
Butler Tech has halted its two internships with the sheriff’s office, a school spokesman told FOX19 NOW last month.
The inmates are Willie Attaway and Larkin McGowan, both 32, sheriff’s records show.
Both of the inmates have violent criminal records and were or are currently at the jail on a federal hold for U.S. Marshals in Cincinnati and Columbus.
Attaway “admitted to murdering” and pleaded guilty last year “to using a firearm to commit murder and other crimes of violence” in the February 2021 shooting death of Madeira store owner Roop C. Gupta, 68, according to an August 2023 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio.
Attaway was recommended to serve a sentence of up to 45 years in prison after also admitting to brandishing a gun to rob or attempt to rob the four other stores. in a two-day crime spree.
Serial armed robber pleads guilty to murder of Madeira store owner during 2021 crime spree
McGowan was at the jail on a hold for U.S. Marshals in Columbus, according to the sheriff’s office. His criminal record includes convictions for burglary and aggravated robbery
McGowan is no longer at the jail but Attaway remains in custody there, the jail roster shows.
He pleaded guilty in federal court to a 2022 charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and was sentenced in February to 18 months in prison minus time served. The court recommended that he participate in a program for substance abuse and mental health treatment while in prison and participate in educational and vocational services.
He also was ordered to be on parole for three years once he is released from prison.
The federal gun charge developed after McGowan was convicted of four counts of robbery in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, court records show.
The Butler County Jail has housed federal inmates like McGowan and Attaway for the U.S. Marshal Service for at least the past 10 years, according to a copy of the contract.
In a statement last month to FOX19 NOW, the U.S. Marshals said they asked “the proper authorities” to investigate as soon as they learned about the allegations.
They declined all other comments due to that ongoing investigation.
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