Consecutive life sentences imposed against a Toledo man found guilty of rape in a Wood County court in 2020 have been overturned.

The 6th District Court of Appeals has overturned Gregory Kamer Jr.’s November 2020 sentence of four consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole, plus 30 months.

The court found that testimony of other acts and the improper admittance of numerous incriminating statements through hearsay testimony was allowed by former Wood County Common Pleas Judge Alan Mayberry.

In November 2018, Kamer, who is now 36, was indicted on 12 charges related to the sexual abuse of a child who was 5 years old at the time of the offenses.

Eight charges were for rape, all first-degree felonies; two were for gross sexual imposition, both third-degree felonies; and two were for disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.

He was defended by Scott Coon and prosecuted by Pamela Gross.

The incidents allegedly occurred between Dec. 1, 2018 and July 29, 2019.

The following information was taken from the ruling as outlined by the appeals court.

At trial in October 2020, testimony was given by the child, the child’s mother, a social worker, a detective with the Lake Township Police Department, a child abuse investigator, a sexual assault nurse examiner and Kamer’s former stepdaughter.

A psychologist testified on Kamer’s behalf, and Kamer also testified.

Kamer and the child’s mother were in a relationship and after he was arrested on a parole violation, the child told a family member that Kamer had touched her as a “secret game.”

During the trial, over Kamer’s objections, the court allowed the mother to testify to the specifics of the abuse the child disclosed to her. She also went on to testify about the child’s history of telling lies and making up stories.

Throughout phone calls between the mother and Kamer, who was in jail, he continued to deny abusing the child and the mother claimed that the child had changed her story three times.

During the child’s brief testimony, she mostly gave nonverbal or indecipherable answers and most of the time the prosecutor did not clarify for the record whether the child’s response was affirmative or negative.

Kamer objected to hearsay information given by the detective as learned from a child abuse investigator. As the child abuse investigator started to testify about her interview with the child, defense counsel continued to object about hearsay.

Mayberry overruled the objection, stating the child was there and was subject to cross-examination, “so it is no hearsay.”

During cross examination, the nurse who examined the child testified she found no evidence of sexual assault.

The psychologist who testified on Kamer’s behalf said children sometimes make the mistake of claiming an experience that they had, when it wasn’t one they experienced, but one they saw.

When Kamer took the stand, he said he did not assault the child. He also said that he and the mother often had sex in a motel room, with the child present, which could corraborate the psychologist’s claims.

The jury found Kamer guilty of four counts of rape and one count of gross sexual imposition. At sentencing, the trial court imposed life terms in prison without the possibility of parole for each rape conviction and 30 months for the GSI conviction.

The court ordered he serve the five sentences consecutively.

In appeal, Kamer said Mayberry erred by allowing the admittance of hearsay evidence over objection and by refusing to allow the admittance of evidence that would have been used to impeach the credibility of the complaining witness.

He also alleged that the indictment was flawed in that it charged multiple carbon copy counts, and the court allowed testimony of the nurse, the police detective and the child abuse interviewer despite none of the being qualified as an expert witness.

The appeals court ruled that the trial court erred by allowing the nurse to testify on her findings of injuries from a sexual assault, as those opinions were not disclosed to the defense.

The appeals court also ruled that testimony by a stepdaughter was not admissible and the trial court erred in allowing her to testify. Although the state told the jury twice it may consider the stepdaughter’s evidence only as a way to prove the identity of the person who committed the offense, its instructions were limited and did not mitigate the prejudicial impact of the evidence.

“An appellate court must consider both the impact of the offending evidence on the verdict and the strength of the remaining evidence after the tainted evidence is removed from the record,” the appeals court wrote.

The appeals court found that admission of the stepdaughter’s testimony prejudiced Kamer and affected the verdict.

The appeals court also found that certain hearsay evidence was improperly admitted and likely affected the verdict, specifically the child’s incriminating statements — given through testimony of the police detective and the child abuse investigator — that was not part of the child’s testimony.

Kamer will remain in prison in Orient, Ohio, until a local court date is set.