Football coach charged with rape
A middle-school NEWARK — football coach in the Lakewood Local School District in Hebron is facing a felony rape charge.
Gary Stratford, 36, of Thornville, had his initial appearance Monday in Licking County Common Pleas Court, where his bond was set at $250,000.
A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday. According to court documents, a juvenile reported to a Licking County Sheriff ’s Office detective that Stratford gave her alcohol and requested she “sleep in bed with him,” then “digitally penetrated her vagina and engaged in intercourse with her.”
She told the detective the incident took place at Stratford’s home over the weekend.
Court documents note that Stratford “admitted to giving the juvenile alcohol” and “digitally penetrating” her “but denied engaging in intercourse.”
The girl’s age and relationship to Stratford were not immediately available.
An agenda for the Sept. 13 Lakewood school board listed Stratford’s hiring as an eighth-grade football coach among other supplemental contracts for the school year.
The district referred questions Monday about Stratford’s hiring and current status to Superintendent Mary Kay Andrews, who could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
Stratford also was listed on the Lakewood Youth Baseball’s website as vice president of that group’s board of directors.
A registered sex offender convicted on voyeurism charges at least six times in the past is suspected of peeping on women in bathrooms in Kettering and Dayton, according to Kettering and Montgomery County Sheriff ’s detectives.
Harold Rimblert III, 34, is suspected of looking under a women’s restroom stall at the Montgomery County Administration Building last week.
He was scheduled in court Thursday afternoon for voyeurism and criminal trespassing charges in that case following his arrest Wednesday evening at his home on Burgess Avenue, according to court records.
According to a county incident report, Rimblert is suspected of peeping under a women’s bathroom stall on the sixth floor of the Montgomery County Administration Building, 451 W. Third St., on Sept. 22, according to a Montgomery County Sheriff ’s Office report.
According to the report, the female victim told deputies a man stuck his head and shoulders under the bathroom stall. The woman said she “immediately got up, pulled up her pants and ran out of the stall screaming,” the report read.
After reviewing surveillance video, deputies were able to identify Rimblert as a possible suspect in the case, according to the report.
Rimblert also is scheduled for a change of plea hearing today in a case in which he’s accused of looking under bathroom stalls at women at the Christ United Methodist Church in Kettering.
Rimblert faces two counts of voyeurism is Kettering Municipal Court in connection to the case at the church, 3440 Shroyer Road.
On Aug. 3, he was accused of “looking under bathroom stalls as women were using the restroom” and two victims were identified in that case, according to court records.
Rimblert, a tier III sex offender, has at least six previous voyeurism convictions since 2008, according to state records.