By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com

Without a victim available for testimony, a Bucyrus man was able to plead guilty to sexual imposition, a first-degree misdemeanor, rather than his original charge of first-degree felony rape.

Fifty-year-old David Reed entered a guilty plea to the amended charge and received a six-month county jail sentence, the maximum available in this instance. He already served the entire sentence while going through the court proceedings and narrowly avoided a jury trial, which was scheduled for Jan. 12. Reed will have to pay a $1,000 fine and must register as a Tier I sex offender for the next 15 years.

Reed attempted to plead no contest, but the prosecutor’s office refused to go along with it. A guilty plea now opens Reed up to a civil suit.

“(We) diligently tried to make a case out of the facts,” assistant prosecutor Ryan Hoovler explained.

The case was hindered, however, when the victim died two to three months after the incident. That placed limitations on the evidence the prosecutor’s office did have.

“The state did everything they could,” acknowledged Leuthold, who added he would be reluctant to amend a sex offense in a normal situation.

Reed, who will be residing in Marion County, also served four years in prison in 1997 for gross sexual imposition.

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Brandon Borders appeared in court for a probation violation hearing. The 19-year-old Morral man allegedly caused damage to the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office while being housed there on Jan. 8.

Borders was facing charges in both Crawford and Wyandot counties when he was sentenced for having weapons under disability here last August. He would serve only six months of that in prison before being granted judicial release. He was supposed to be handed over to Wyandot County for entrance into a community-based correctional facility, but he was denied a spot in the rehabilitation program.

“We tried to bend over backwards a little bit,” Hoovler said about both counties’ efforts to help Borders.

Leuthold set bond at $100,000 and appointed Andrew Motter as Borders’ attorney.

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