Update: The jury found Tyler Ward guilty on four of the five counts charged. Judge Sean Leuthold imposed maximum, consecutive sentences on each count for a total prison sentence of 54 months. More on the verdict and sentence will be available on Saturday on www.crawfordcountynow.com.
By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
The final definition for “knowingly” will determine whether or not Tyler Ward is guilty of drug trafficking, but the prosecution and defense counsel each made a strong case for it Thursday.
Crawford County Common Pleas Court Judge Sean Leuthold released a jury of eight women and four men just before 4 p.m. Thursday after the prosecution called five witnesses and the defense had Ward take the stand. Before that, however, the judge had a discussion with assistant prosecutor Ryan Hoovler and defense attorney Joel Spitzer about the jury instructions he will draw up for Friday’s closing arguments and jury deliberation.
“What does knowingly mean? That’s the issue for tomorrow,” Leuthold said.
Throughout Spitzer’s questioning of the witnesses, he built a case that his client, 25-year-old Ward, did traffic in heroin and Xanax, but did not knowingly traffic in fentanyl, which was cut into the heroin. Hoovler, however, set a precedent that Ward knowingly sold controlled substances.
Ward was never the subject of a drug investigation in Crawford County until a confidential informant set up a controlled buy with Tiffany Quaintance in July of 2016.
Detective Chris Heydinger of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office testified in court that a man on probation approached his probation officer after he tested positive for cocaine. Rather than have the violation impact his probation, he agreed to work for the sheriff’s office as a confidential informant (CI).
Heydinger and county probation officer Eric Bohach allowed the informant to set up a drug buy with Quaintance on July 8. Through calls with Quaintance, who said her boyfriend would be with her when the deal occurred, the informant agreed to buy one gram of heroin and three Xanax tablets for $125.
The informant met with Heydinger at the Galion Police Department where he was searched for contraband and outfitted with an audio recorder. Calls from Quaintance on the day of the buy forced Heydinger and Bohach to adjust the deal a bit and they told the informant to purchase the gram of heroin and only one Xanax tablet while the rest of the funds would go toward gas money for Quaintance, who was driving in from Bellville after meeting with her supplier.
Heydinger and Bohach drove the informant to the Dollar General Store in Galion and waited while the CI walked to Cobey Park for the drug buy. With the informant transmitting back to Heydinger’s car through the audio recorder, Heydinger and Bohach followed the informant’s progress as he waited roughly an hour at the park for Quaintance and her boyfriend to arrive.
Hoovler played nearly 20 minutes of an hour and a half long audio for the jury where the informant could be heard talking to Heydinger through the audio and receiving text message responses from Bohach. The informant eventually met up with the car carrying Quaintance, who was incapacitated, and her boyfriend, who handled the buy. As the jury listened to the recording, the informant could be heard counting out the money and asking the boyfriend, who identified himself as “Tyler,” whether the heroin had fentanyl. The boyfriend replied that it was “street heroin.”
Heydinger testified that while the informant took part in the drug transaction and obtained a name for the driver of the car, Bohach searched for Quaintance on Facebook. It was there that he found Quaintance’s relationship status with a Tyler Ward. A look at Ward’s Facebook page found a similar status for Quaintance and photos Heydinger and Bohach could use in an attempt to identify the boyfriend in the car.
Once the deal was finished, the informant returned to Heydinger’s car a few minutes later where he deposited the drugs he bought in an evidence bag. The CI was shown a Facebook picture of Tyler Ward and confirmed that it was the person he bought the heroin and Xanax pill from.
Heydinger said a forensic chemist from the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) found that the .9 grams of drugs collected was a combination of heroin and fentanyl.
“In Crawford County, in the last couple of years, dealers are adding fentanyl to the heroin to get a bigger high,” Heydinger explained. He added that it gave the user a bigger bang for their buck and was also the main cause for drug overdoses in the county.
In Heydinger’s experience, dealers typically are not found with a chemical test on them or with pharmaceutical books to identify the drugs. He stated that there was no way to know if fentanyl was in the heroin until it was tested.
“But fentanyl and heroin are being sold in Crawford County?” Hoovler asked.
“Yes, sir,” confirmed Heydinger.
Under cross examination by Spitzer, Heydinger admitted that he could not determine the chemical makeup of a drug with his naked eye, but added that Ohio guidelines do not allow law enforcement officers to handle drugs due to the abundance of fentanyl in heroin.
“How would a low guy on a totem pole, a middle man, know there was fentanyl in (the heroin)?” Spitzer asked.
Hoovler countered that question in his redirect, getting Heydinger to admit that someone who sold heroin in full grams could “potentially” be bigger than a “run of the mill dealer.”
Major Chad Filliater of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office was the second officer to take the stand. He testified to assisting in Heydinger’s case by observing Cobey Park from East Church Street in an unmarked vehicle with Detective Ed Rieke.
Filliater and Rieke kept a look out for a dark blue late 1990s Pontiac, which they noted arriving to the park. After the drug buy, the two men observed the vehicle exit Cobey Park by traveling west on East Church Street toward their vehicle. Filliater and Rieke met the Pontiac at the intersection of East Church Street and North East Street, facing the vehicle head-on with a clear view of the male driver through the windshield and later through the open driver’s side window as the car made a right hand turn.
“We were nose to nose,” Rieke said under his questioning.
Filliater and Rieke followed the vehicle to the county line before returning to the Galion Police Department. It was there that they were shown a picture of a man, which Filliater and Rieke confirmed to be the person driving the car.
Spitzer questioned Filliater on visits to the jail and whether inmates understood they would be recorded when talking on the phone with a visitor. In a redirect by Hoovler, Filliater stated that warnings are posted and a similar audio warning is heard through the phone.
Detective Craig Moser of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office handled the second controlled drug buy, which occurred on Aug. 9. According to Moser, the informant agreed to buy one gram of heroin from Ward. The two were to meet at East Park in Galion this time.
Moser outfitted the informant with audio and video equipment, supplied him with $100 for the drugs, and drove to a nearby ice cream business. The informant walked to East Park to once again wait for Ward to arrive.
The jury watched roughly nine minutes of the video obtained by the informant, which saw him walking between the baseball fields and the splash park to meet Ward as children’s screams of delight could be heard from the nearby playground. The CI got in the car and Ward drove to another location to weigh the drugs before dropping the informant off at the ice cream business after the transaction.
At one point Hoovler stopped the video to question Moser about a conversation that took place between the informant and Ward. Moser confirmed that the two men discussed Quaintance selling heroin laced with fentanyl to a cousin who later died from the drugs.
Moser stated that results from BCI showed that the purchased .98 grams consisted of heroin and fentanyl.
Spitzer pointed out that they only knew what was in the heroin after the detective received the BCI results. Under questioning from the defense, Moser said the purchased heroin was gray in color, an indication that it could have fentanyl in it.
The confidential informant was the final witness to take the stand for the prosecution. The CI admitted to seeking a deal in order to get out of his parole violation. He added that the prosecution would recommend judicial release for him if he testified truthfully in court for the Ward trial.
The informant said he was addicted to cocaine and, though he never used heroin, he knew through messages on Facebook that he could buy the drug from Quaintance. The CI’s testimony followed much of the statements made earlier in the day by law enforcement concerning the drug deals. He added that in the run-up to the second deal, he called Quaintance’s phone to set it up, but it was answered by Ward.
Spitzer attempted to cast doubt on the informant’s testimony by focusing on his past crimes and violations. He also got the informant to admit that he never asked to buy fentanyl nor was he ever explicitly offered heroin mixed with fentanyl.
Ward rounded out the testimony for the day as the only witness called by the defense. He testified to being a drug addict and selling drugs to feed his addiction.
“I want you to look at the jury and answer this question,” Spitzer said to Ward. “Did you sell heroin on July 7, 2016?”
Turning to look at the nearby jury, Ward simply said, “Yes, I did.”
However, Ward said he did not know the heroin had fentanyl in it, a statement that was repeated when Spitzer asked him about the Aug. 9 deal.
Ward said he never knew the heroin was laced with fentanyl until he was served an indictment in November of 2016 and when Spitzer later showed him the BCI results.
Spitzer built on Ward’s denial of knowing that the heroin was mixed with fentanyl by playing an audio recording of a discussion between Ward and his mother at the county jail. Ward told his mother he was charged with trafficking in heroin, fentanyl, and Xanax, but had only one thing to say about the additional drug.
“The heroin had fentanyl in it, I guess.”
Upon cross examination, Hoovler hammered at Ward, asking if he knowingly sold controlled substances to the informant for $125 on July 8 and for $100 on Aug. 9.
“You didn’t accidentally sell those substances on these two days. You knew what you were doing, correct?” Hoovler asked, later adding that though Ward didn’t know the additive was in the heroin, he still sold fentanyl.
Ward could only reply in a quiet, understated voice.
“I sold what I believe was heroin,” said Ward.
Ward is facing three counts of drug trafficking – heroin, fentanyl, and Xanax – from the July 7 incident and two counts of trafficking – heroin and fentanyl – from Aug. 9. The trafficking in fentanyl charges are listed as fourth-degree felonies while the other three are classified as fifth-degree felonies. If sentenced to consecutive, maximum sentences, Ward could face up to 72 months in prison.
The jury will hear closing arguments beginning at 9 a.m. Friday.
RELATED CONTENT: Motion to suppress Internet sleuthing evidence denied