Prosecutor fi lls local jails with suspects
Benjamin C. Glassman is costing taxpayers more money, and he’s OK with that.
Glassman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, is reaching far and wide — very far, in some cases — to fight crime that could hurt Ohioans.
He persuaded the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to deposit four Ecuadorean cocaine traffickers caught off the Galapagos Islands for prosecution on his turf in Columbus.
And members of the multinational gang MS-13 were charged in September with extorting money from Columbus businesses and laundering it back to the gang’s leadership in El Salvador.
The increase in the prosecution of violent crimes and drug cases such as these, especially amid the opioid crisis, had the U.S District Court for Southern Ohio looking for extra jail space to keep a record 483 defendants whose cases were pending as of Oct. 7.
“That’s a lot for us,” said Chief U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. Of the total defendants, 223 were up on drug charges, 43 for violent crimes and 38 for child pornography.
To prevent overtaxing the Franklin and Delaware County jails that hold federal prisoners, Peter C. Tobin, the U.S. marshal for the 48-county Southern District, recently contracted with a regional jail in Williams County, 150 miles northwest of Columbus, to hold some defendants. So far, 30 defendants have been sent to the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio near Bryan.
That jail is charging $90 a day per federal inmate, about $25 more than the local jails.
Other federal court districts are having similar problems housing the influx of defendants, Sargus said. The largest districts, such as New York City and Los Angeles, have their own holding facilities.
An Obama administration appointee last year, Glassman swears he’s not padding his crime-fighting resume because President Donald Trump could replace him at a moment’s notice. Ohio’s U.S. senators have recommended Greg Hartmann, an attorney and former Hamilton County commissioner, to replace Glassman.
“We just want to reach out as far as we can and as far as we need to go to stop crime that is hurting people in this district,” Glassman said. “I sincerely believe people in Russia can hurt us, people in China can hurt us here.”
He spoke enviously of fellow prosecutors in North Dakota who this month “beat us to indicting” two men in China with selling fentanyl over the “dark web’ that has been tied to deadly overdoses. It was unclear whether Chinese officials have taken action against the suspects.
“We have violent crime initiatives in Cincinnati, and now Columbus, that are successfully bringing more violent crime prosecutions,” he said.
Glassman’s office works closely with state and local law enforcement, counting on street cops to identify the “small number of people
disproportionately responsible for a large number of violence.” Suspects are charged in state or federal court depending on which nets prosecutors the best results, meaning guilty pleas and stiff prison sentences.
For example, two suspects arrested by Columbus police in the February beating death of a man and slayings of two women to cover up a West Side drug operation were charged in U.S. District Court with murdering witnesses to a crime. The case could qualify for the federal death penalty.
Glassman said his office is operating at “full throttle, with a lot of hardworking, really enthusiastic prosecutors.” Individual assistant U.S. attorneys specialize in handling violent crime, drugs, illegal immigration, child pornography, tax and fraud cases.
Where only the top offenders in a drug ring were usually charged, now it’s not uncommon for cases to include a list of 15 or so defendants with even the most minor players. “We are looking to dismantle entire distribution organizations,” he said.
Spending more to house the expanding number of defendants “is a bargain,” he said.
The Franklin County jail had 149 federal prisoners in a daily average population last week that fluctuates between 1,000 and 2,000 prisoners.
“That’s a bit high for us; usually we’re around 125,” said Marc Gofstein, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. Franklin County charges the federal court $68 per inmate per day. Between the Downtown facility and the one on Jackson Pike, the jail has a total of 2,314 beds.
Delaware County averages about 37 federal inmates each month and charges a daily rate of $65, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Tracy Whited said. The jail there can hold between 20 and 35 federal inmates, depending on the size of the general population at the time, Whited said. The 286-bed jail has turned down only a few requests to house federal inmates in 2017, she said.
Sargus, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District, noted that the Williams County $90 fee includes having that jail transport defendants between the jail and the federal courthouses in Columbus and Dayton instead of Tobin’s deputies.
Prisoners with hearings at the federal courthouse in Cincinnati will continue to be kept at the nearby Butler County jail.