By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
A third person was arraigned on charges connected to the Galion homicide that occurred in September.
Thirty-six-year-old Carla Willoughby, twin sister to co-defendant Marla Saunders and sister-in-law to Fred Saunders Jr., was indicted by the Grand Jury on four charges: an unclassified felony of complicity to commit aggravated murder, kidnapping (F1), tampering with evidence (F3), and obstruction of justice (F3) in the death of Fred Saunders Sr. The unclassified felony carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison while the kidnapping charge comes with an 11-year maximum sentence. The third-degree felonies both carry 36-month prison sentences.
Judge Sean Leuthold set bond at $2.5 million, the same bond that he gave her sister earlier this week.
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Thirty-four-year-old Crystal Minamyer pleaded guilty to drug possession and illegal conveyance into a detention facility. Though Minamyer has a recommended sentence of five years on community control along with a $1,250 fine, and a six-month driver’s license suspension, she will instead be heading to the hospital for a much-needed surgery.
Leuthold released Minamyer on a personal recognizance bond with the stipulation that she gets the surgery done. If she fails to abide by her bond, she could be sentenced to a total of four years in prison for the two felonies.
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Judge Leuthold granted judicial release for two men during the afternoon proceedings, though he warned both that he would never have agreed to the early release agreements if he had been on the bench when they pleaded guilty.
Twenty-one-year-old Jacob Diemer, one of the men who burglarized Lucky’s Cash and Carry in Tiro last year, served 11 months out of his four-year prison sentence for felony two burglary.
“If you came to me with this today, there’s no way I’d give you four years and out in 11 months. I’d give you six years flat,” Leuthold stated. “You’re getting what I think is an easy break here, which I’m not crazy about giving. This is the last break you’re going to get from this court.”
Leuthold placed Diemer on community control for five years with the conditions that he enter into a drug and alcohol treatment program and he pay $5,969.41 in restitution.
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Twenty-seven-year-old Thomas Reed Jr. served five years on an eight-year prison sentence and was granted judicial release.
“You spent five years in prison,” Leuthold said. “If you haven’t figured it out, nothing else is going to.”
Leuthold placed Reed on community control for five years but warned him that the final three years of his sentence could be imposed if Reed fails on probation. The judge also ordered Reed to have no contact with the victim in the felonious assault case.
Alan Swim was arraigned on an abduction felony. He allegedly held the victim in his car with the promise that he would take her home. Leuthold set bond at $50,000 and appointed Grant Garverick as counsel.
Swim, however, protested the bond and being sent back to the county jail, muttering on his way out the courtroom doors.
“You don’t have a criminal here, Your Honor,” Swim said as he was brought back into the courtroom.
“You know what I do have? Contempt,” Leuthold argued.
He held Swim in contempt and ordered him to serve 30 days in the county jail.