Man freed on $5 million bond in father’s slaying

A $5 million bail wasn’t enough to keep Jonah B. Lake in the Franklin County jail. Lake, 20, indicted a week ago on a charge of aggravated murder in the shooting death of his father, Kevin B. Lake, a former doctor and convicted pill-mill operator, was released Thursday to house arrest after a bail-bond agent posted bond.

The house arrest, required as a condition of his bond, will confine Lake to an address with his mother in the 500 block of South Parkview Avenue in Bexley, court records show.

“I can’t ever remember a defendant posting a bond at $5 million, or even $1 million or $2 million,” said Ron O’Brien, who has served as Franklin County prosecutor for 21 years.

Agents who post bond typically require a defendant’s Jonah B. Lake family to pay 10 percent, which can be done in a number of ways, including by putting up real estate as collateral.

The bail amount, set by Common Pleas Magistrate Jennifer Hunt at Lake’s arraignment on Nov. 9, was “wholly inappropriate,” said Lake’s attorney, Terry Sherman.

“He’s known he’s been a suspect for a year, but he didn’t run, he didn’t hide,” Sherman said. “There was no reason to hit him with such a ridiculous bond. If he was a threat to the community, they’d have arrested him a year ago.”

The defendant’s father had accumulated considerable wealth, based on filings in a federal criminal case against him. When he pleaded guilty in February 2017 to drug, fraud and tax-evasion charges, he was required to surrender nearly $30 million from his personal accounts and his business operations and to forfeit four properties encompassing 464 acres.