Jury convicts Perrysburg man on five counts of rape

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Jurors took under four hours Wednesday before returning a guilty verdict on all five counts of rape
against Joseph Richcreek.
Richcreek, 26, of Lime City Road, Perrysburg, was charged with rape involving two women, both now 19
years old. The first incident was alleged to have occurred in 2002 and first reported in 2007; while the
final incidents with the second victim occurred in December of 2008 and as late as February of this
year.
The case, presided over by Wood County Common Pleas Court Judge Alan Mayberry, posed various challenges
for the jurors, including the testimony of one of the alleged victims. She was served a subpoena to
testify on Monday, but failed to show.
During opening arguments, Heather Baker, an assistant prosecutor for Wood County who presented the case,
told the jurors she had no idea what that victim would say from the stand. While she had filed the 2007
report, she had at various times recanted, declined a rape kit test and had indicated she did not wish
to get Richcreek into trouble.
The victim was arrested on Monday and brought to the courtroom on Tuesday morning to testify. According
to the foreperson, Ebony Ross, the jurors were not aware of the details of her arrest or original
failure to appear.
When brought to the court, the victim testified Tuesday morning there was nothing to the charges and that
she was never raped by Richcreek. This despite, her police report, where she indicated there was a rape.

Ross, from Detroit who is a student at Bowling Green State University, stated the jury had little trouble
reaching guilty verdicts on the charges involving that victim.
“It was so obvious she was lying,” Ross said.
This case was initiated by the other victim, a member of the Army National Guard who will soon be
deployed to Iraq. She did testify to Richcreek’s actions as it related to her.
An investigating officer had made mistakes in the documentation to obtain a search warrant for
Richcreek’s dwelling. Baker dismissed those errors as not relevant to the case and attributed them to
routine human errors, which did not play a role in the guilt or innocence of the defendant.
Another interesting aspect of the case was a tape of a phone conversation from the jail with his mother
where the prosecution alleged Richcreek admitted to the allegations; while the defense argued through
his mother’s testimony they were talking of another situation.
“The tape clinched it for us,” Ross said of the thought process of the jury of five women and seven men.

All telephone conversations involving inmates are monitored and recorded. Both the defendant and his
mother should have heard the standard disclaimer at the start of the call advising them of that fact.
Ross said the jurors repeatedly listened to the tape trying to decipher what she described as “talking
in code” by Richcreek and his mother.
“If he was innocent, they would not need to talk in code,” the foreperson stated after the trial.
Richcreek chose not to testify in his own defense. He showed no emotion as the verdicts were read by
Mayberry.
In his closing remarks, defense attorney William Stephenson asked the jurors to consider the motivation
of the victims to fabricate the story.
“What it adds up to is reasonable doubt,” Stephenson said.
He also told the jury that “a rational juror” could not find his client guilty “based on this evidence.”

On the other hand, Baker stressed that both victims had said “no” — the first victim in her 2007 report;
and the second in her report earlier this year and as she testified in the courtroom. This was to
counter the defense claim that the contact was consensual.
To accommodate the second victim before she is deployed, sentencing was set for Friday at 1:30 p.m.
Each count of rape is a first-degree felony carrying a mandatory three to 10 year sentence. If the judge
issues the maximum sentence on each count and orders the time served consecutively, Richcreek could be
facing 50 years in custody.
Front page photo caption: Joseph Richcreek is on trial for five counts of rape. (Photo: J.D.
Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

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