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WARREN -- The Supreme Court of Ohio on Monday declined to review the appeal of a Burghill man serving an indefinite 10-to-15 year prison term after being convicted in 2022 of sex offenses involving three teen girls.
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy made an entry outlining the court's decision to not accept jurisdiction of the defendant's appeal.
On July 21, 2022, Elijah D. Peters, 21, formerly of Thompson Sharpsville Road, pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, two counts of gross sexual imposition, a count of unlawful sexual contact with a minor and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
Trumbull County 911 reports state on Jan. 13, 2021, Peters was accused of being in the company of a 12-year-old girl, who was reported to have run away from her great-grandmother's Weathersfield home. Prosecutors said the rape and gross sexual imposition charges dealt with the then-12-year-old, while the unlawful sexual contact dealt with another girl victim who was 13 at the time.
Wildman said a third girl victim was involved in the disseminating charge linked to Peters sending a nude image of himself over a cellphone.
Now an inmate at Belmont Correctional Institution, Peters was convicted of engaging in sexual conduct with two minor victims and sending nude pictures of himself to a third minor.
After being sentenced in September 2022, Peters filed an appeal to the Eleventh District Court arguing the trial court had erred in finding him competent to stand trial. Peters argued to the appeals court that the finding was against the manifest weight of the evidence.
The competency of Peters had been debated throughout his case, and again was brought up during that sentencing hearing before Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Ronald J. Rice through statements from Peters' attorney and several of his relatives.
At the hearing, Rice heard from Peters' father, Eli, who said his son had medical problems from birth, including having a hole in his heart. He also talked about the son's delays in his intellectual and emotional growth.
"As a young adult, he has the thought processes of a 14-year-old," the older Peters stated in asking the judge to show mercy.
A tearful aunt claimed the defendant had been physically abused as a youngster and "doesn't understand the full repercussions of his actions."
Peters' maternal grandmother also talked about Peters having "the mind of a child" and also asked the judge for mercy and to send her grandson to a mental institution because "he would be prey to the predators in prison."
Rice, who showed concern for the defendant's mental history by ordering the second evaluation, also labeled Peters a Tier 3 sexual offender which means after his release, he will have to register his address with the sheriff's office four times per year for the rest of his life.
In September 2021, court records show Peters was evaluated by Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship of University Hospitals' Cleveland Medical Center. After that report was released, Rice found Peters on Nov. 4, 2021, incompetent to stand trial. After spending time in Heartland Behavioral Center in Massillon, Rice ruled on June 6, 2022, that Peters was competent.
Eleventh District Court Judges Matt Lynch, John Eklund and Eugene A. Lucci in June 2023 were not swayed by Peters' argument, ruling that there was reliable, credible evidence to support the competency finding. The appellate court cited testimony from Przemyslaw Kapalczynski, a staff psychiatrist at Heartland Behavioral Healthcare, who had treated Peters for over four months since his admission to the Massillon facility on Dec. 9, 2021. The doctor told the trial court that he believed Peters to be comptent enough to assist in his own defense at trial, including to testify.
The case was argued by Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Sanders against Peters' defense attorney Michael A. Partlow of Stow.