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WARREN – In a release of evidence this week, a Trumbull County assistant prosecutor revealed that former Hubbard Mayor Richard Keenan admitted on several occasions he sexually abused a female child from 2014 to 2016.
Assistant Prosecutor Gabriel Wildman, in response to defense attorney J. Gerald Ingram’s request for police reports from Hubbard and the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Office, wrote that Keenan made numerous incriminating statements to authorities, his spouse, a prior attorney, his pastor, medical personnel and a social worker, according to a court filing.
Keenan faces 20 felony charges, including eight counts of gross sexual imposition, eight counts of rape that carry a life sentence and four counts of attempted rape that carry a life sentence. The ex-mayor pleaded not guilty to the charges Aug. 18 and was released from custody after he posted $75,000 bond that day.
Keenan’s trial is scheduled to begin April 24, 2017.
According to the legal document, shortly after the child disclosed the ongoing sexual abuse, the former mayor was confronted by his wife Diana Keenan, and the ex-mayor told his wife, he did it. Keenan also admitted to abusing the child in group discussions at the psychiatric ward at Trumbull Memorial Hospital; to a social worker at Riverbend Psychiatric facility in Warren; in numerous meetings with a local pastor; and to his brother and sister-in-law during a phone call, the filing stated.
In another filing, Wildman asks Common Pleas Judge Peter J. Kontos to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Keenan’s statements to his spouse, his pastor, a prior attorney or medical personnel can be admitted as evidence or is privileged information and cannot be heard by a jury.
Kontos set a hearing on the motion Jan. 20 in his courtroom. Ohio law states a pastor cannot be compelled to testify about confessional material directly made to the cleric. A spouse is considered competent if he or she elects to testify, according to Ohio Rules of Evidence.
The filing details some of Keenan’s admissions.
After Keenan was released from Trumbull Memorial Hospital, he checked himself into the Riverbend facility, the document stated. When he was asked the reason for his admission, the document said Keenan told a social worker he was “feeling suicidal because he had been molesting the child victim for approximately the past two years.”
The document goes on to mention explicit details about the incidents in Keenan’s discussions with his pastor. The document describes the defendant saying the sexual acts started off as tickling and progressed to fondling, kissing and oral sex. He told his brother and sister-in-law during a phone call that he had molested the child and stated that “he had gone way way too far and way over the line,” the document stated.
Keenan knew his victim prior to the abuse. A message left for Ingram was not returned.