Say after the tri State bad weather is heading our way with winds up to
fifty miles in our state. Tuned for that and more. Plus later on
we're going to have Randy Freaking in at one thirty to talk about Red Spaceball
and the Community Fund. It's getting ready for action. On Thursday. Our
coverage starts about five am, but nonetheless, albeit the Holy Grail with Marty
Brenneman and Bob Castellini, a bunch of others starting about two o'clock. Joints
there if you can get in, it's going to be wonderful. But most
importantly Hamny County Prosecutor and Melissa Powers has an opinion editorial in the Inquiry about
runaways, what's happening in juvenile court. Also there was another a long editorial
and there was a long story in the Inquiry about snitches are being misused and
the neophyte running against Melissa Powers is saying that there used to be an addit
of homicide cases in the Hamny County Prosecutor's office to make sure that the murderers
are getting all that's due to them. As far as rights plus squatters are
a big issue, I know in northern Kentucky and Ohio people are concerned about
leaving their homes and whether squatters may simply come into your house live there and
you can't get them out. And a plus elder justice is percolating on the
side. Also Melissa Powers, welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show. And
first of all, there's an audit proposed by your political opponent, an audit
as if this is some sort of an accounting matter of the snitches and others
on the criminal cases. How many kinds of prosecutor's office has been recognized for
decades as the top prosecutor's office in the Tri State, if not the nation.
The conviction rate you have for murder cases as well, above ninety five
percent might be ninety nine percent. Can you describe the role of snitches in
murder cases and why they're critical and those who criticize such things don't know what
they're talking about. Well, oftentimes, Bill that in order to proceed on
criminal matters, it may involve having informants or snitches Jaoe house snitches involved in
a case. And it is the use of these informants are always determined on
a case by case basis. The decision to offer any testimony and informant in
a trial is also determined by a case by case basis with the attorney handle
meet cases, and then we use a lot of we go back through what
their testimony of maybe if used at a trial, consulting with law enforcement,
review of the evidence, what are the strength and weaknesses of the case.
So there's a lot of factors that go in. No one likes using them,
but sometimes it's a necessity. Is the only way in order to go
forward. We would love to have you know, cases proved and witness all
our witnesses to be you know, crimes to occur in front of a convent
for example, where the witnesses are impeccable, but that's not always the case
when you're dealing with criminal matters. So it's used, It's been used for
years, is forever really quite honestly. Some are effective and sometimes it's not.
It's a high risk in using the snitch, There's no doubt about it.
Many times it's the only method to get a conviction. And members of
these gangs in Cincinnati, and you can get somebody killed in Cincinnati for like
fifteen hundred dollars or less. And these aren't boy scouts. These are not
members of the Chamber of commerce. And many times if you call her a
snitch and they put the hot white lamps on them, they want to give
information, and you vought your juris ahead of time, telling them, look
this is and then you confirm that what the snitch is telling you independently objectively
about some other member of the gang. You confirm that before you proceed.
And so for those who say there needs to be an audit, that someone
needs to come to audit the ament Cunty Prosecutor's office on the use of snitches,
how does a seasoned prosecutor like you react to the idea of an audit.
Well, I did see the response or comment by my opponent who wants
to conduct an audit of all homicide cases. So I don't know how far
back that she's intending to go with that and overturned convictions if a snitch was
used or an informant was used. I have no idea, but it's it
just points out I think the glaring that is so glaring that she doesn't know
what she's talking about, and she does not have the experience in the criminal
justice system to understand how things work. And and basically I think it points
out that she doesn't She hasn't been in the courtroom and has never handled a
homicide case, has never worked with law enforcement on homicide cases, have never
have never interviewed a snitch, have never gone through all the methods that you're
trying to make sure that the snitch is giving you truthful testimony. The last
thing we want is to be able to have a trial where we and we
have a snitch that's not credible. We do the best we can with that,
but as you know, the criminal justice process is not perfect. Both
the state and the criminal defendants, we want a fair trial. It's not
always going to be a perfect one. Every day we work in law enforcement,
we want to make sure justice is served in the courtrooms, and we
want to make sure that the people have confidence and what's happening inside the courtrooms.
If we made a mistake, we'll own up to it. This office
will own up to it, and we'll fight just as hard to correct the
record. When attempts are made to cast down on the work that we do,
we look at it as as this is all about public safety, keeping
people safe, holding people accountable, and punishing the wrongdoers, the law breakers,
the criminals that are committing the murders. That's who we want. We
do not. We are looking for the truth. We're always looking for the
truth. Of course, audits are always very important. Got to have an
audit now and then you've never heard of it, to have an audit,
I've never heard of that. But anyway, that's a new approach. But
you have a column on yesterday that you hamilet accounty, juvenile courts, stands
on runaways, a miscarriage of justice. Let me share with the American people
your first sentence. Last falls, thousands of Bengal fans gathered to cheer on
the Bengals at a tailgate around the stadium. A teenager walked among them.
She was pregnant, she was on the run, she was under eighteen,
and she was being trafficked, pimped out, and sold for sex to attendees
of the Ruckus party that takes place every home game during the football season.
Caseworkers had her name, her information, and her history. She's been missing
since July of twenty twenty three and on the run from her foster care placement.
Despite their efforts, she was slipping through the cracks and so this is
a tragedy that happens on large gatherings all the time with runaways and girls,
generally teenagers being trafficked for sex. Explain what the stance is of juvenile Court
relative to runaways and how it's the wrong approach. Well the law. There
are a number of statutes in Ohio that children can be taken into custody and
placed temporarily detention to make sure that they are safe from harm. There's a
federal law also that doesn't allow the children to be held more than seven days.
There's a timeline within twenty four hours if they're taken into custody on a
runaway warrant or a violation of a court order, and typically this involves foster
children and their placements. Currently, to date we have since this was implemented
by Juvenile Court, they decided not to accept runaway charges anymore and instead tell
families or Hamilton County Job and Family Services to file missing person reports for any
runaway or violations of placement orders and then issue them either as a citation and
then contact and have them filed as missing children reports. They claim that this
is a better way to go because it makes it not just in Hamilton County.
There's notice given you know throughout it could be throughout the country. For
example. What that means is is if a police, if a family or
the Hamilton County Job and Family Services, we have a runaway, we have
some right now, we have one hundred. I'm just going to talk about
foster children, not all all runaways, just the foster care kids alone,
one hundred and thirteen kids that have been that ran away from their placement.
Fifty six of them are still a wall since the Court's policy was initiated in
July of twenty three. The example that you pointed out involves one of these
cases where we our office ask for a warrant. Please give us a warrant.
What that enables police to do is to be able to if they locate
the child, take the child into custody and get them before the court to
try to get some services to them, have them evaluate it and see what
they need. What the problem is, why they are running away, If
they're running and so, without getting too technical, what the Court has done
is eliminated all that. Now they're not following the law. They claim it's
the extension of the federal law. So they are writing their own law,
there being activist judges writing their own law saying they're not going to accept any
runaway charges and then just do missing person reports. So what that is a
detriment to the child is if somebody, if the law enforcement does locate the
child, they can all they can do is ask the child, will you
come with us? You know, will you please come with us? What
can we do for you? You know, just ask questions. The child
can refuse to be taken into custody and brought back before the court, So
they've eliminated the mechanism that we can help these children. My office keeps asking
for these warrants. Hamilton since this has been this policy that they've developed and
adopted, if not following the law, creating their own law of no complaints,
no warrants pro Kids as opposed to it. Hamilton County, Job and
Family Services as opposed to it, the Guardian Items as opposed to it.
Also, the Public Defender's Office is opposed to it. Because there are I've
got a list of fifty six kids. The narratives are almost all the same.
If it's a female, there's either interest. We've had one female on
the run who odeed began using intravenious drugs, most likely heroine, given to
her by the pimp that was trafficking our So she's now dead and on a
wall. She was a wall when this happened. We have the girl that
you just explained, but mostly the females. What we have are the young
females are victims of trafficking, and the court knows that this is brought to
their attention by my office. They know about it and still refuse to issue
the warrants. They won't do it now. The warrant is our only mechanism
to remove them from a terrible situation. If it's a male, typically the
males are committing all kinds of crimes from our sin down to the burglary,
stealing, call ours, firearm charges, all the way down the gamut.
And we may catch the boys because they're picking up new charges. But the
females are the ones that are at the highest risk and the saddest cases that
you hear. All of them are being trafficked, and we know that at
the shelter, our local shelter, here is the known spot where these pimps,
these traffickers go to recruit and then Once a girl is recruited, she
goes back into the shelter and recruits more children, more females to be part
of the ring. And it's just a terrible, terrible situation. And the
court, I've made them aware of what's going on. I've pointed it out
to them. I've talked to law enforcement. We've opposed this, we're trying
to get it changed. But they are not relenting. They're double down and
sticking to it and claiming that they're following the law. But they've extended the
law. An extension of the law is the court decided not to accept runaway
charges and warrants. Well, so it leads to families, and that's just
the job. Those are just the foster children, if you I mean,
can you imagine the poor family a child runs away and they don't know how
to locate their child and the best they're going to get is a missing person
report. Well don't you want what do you want? The cop to be
able to take that child and move them from whatever beast situation it is.
I mean, it's just heartless what they're doing. But their agenda and there
they're political philosophy. I don't even know if it involves politics, but their
philosophy is harmful and they're hurting the most the most vulnerable segment of our society,
which not only children, but these children that have been on a difficult
road their entire life. And then we're just compounding which will be lifelong problems
obviously in the future if they if they survive it. And you want to
make clear to the American people that you do not want to criminalize runaways.
What you want to do is use the warrant issued by a judge to a
cop that when you love, okay to girl being sexually trafficked at a REDS
game of Bengals gamer anywhere, I have this warrant, I'm taking you into
custody and I'm gonna put you at twenty twenty. You're gonna go see a
magistrate and that begins the process of getting her out of that life. But
when you don't issue the warrant, that means you decriminalize crime. You decriminalize
it, and you say, well, just file a missing person's report along
with tens of thousands of others, and the cop doesn't they have the authority
to take physical control of that child to begin the process of getting them help.
And this is again Judge carry Bloom is the chief judge and Juvenile Court,
and she says, we're not going to issue warrants and just file a
missing person's report, which harms the children that she is supposed to help and
protect. And so you don't want to criminalize runaways, but you want to
get them in the system so they can get some help. They have a
ladder out of the hole in which they find themselves not now. Lastly,
one of the big issues happening in Hamiley County. I heard about a case
in an upscale community recently in what squatters moved into a house. And can
you tell the American people, just generally speaking, what rights does someone in
Ohio have when they're gone for a couple of weeks or three weeks or six
weeks and someone's living in their home. That seems to me to be a
burglary, but maybe not really explain squatters and how that's developing into a problem.
Well, squatters, they have legal rights in Ohio, surprisingly, and
it makes it difficult for the homeowner to actually remove that person there from the
home. Do you have to follow an eviction process? And that can take
anywhere from six to eight weeks. But the first thing in order to evict
a squatter is to smile and see hopefully a criminal trespass charge at the very
least, maybe a burglary offense. We have successfully prosecuted in the past squatters
for b and E breaking and entering deft. Sometimes they even file records with
the auditor's office and their false documents. We've had one where they're tampering with
records. This squatters they have no legal rights to the property, but they
can actually acquire possession by occupying the property even though they don't have permission of
the owner, and they over a period of time, the longer they're there,
they obtained these rights, says. Often it's an abandoned property or a
ten you know, the homeowner is gone for a period of time thirty days
or more, and people actually move in. They don't have their legal right
to live in there, but no rental agreement, no permission from the property
owner. But they what they turn on the water, they turn on the
electricity, they put it in their name. I mean, there's lots of
things that these squatters are doing that is just just insane to think and normally
that they could be treated and give any any kind of right. Now in
Florida, which I think is being effectively signed today by Guv. DeSantis,
they are giving the police to the right to immediately remove squatters. In Ohio.
The police cannot go in and take it, say knock on the door
and kick the squatter out. The owner, the homeowner has to go through
an eviction process, which is absolutely insane. But Florida. Hopefully Ohio will
follow Florida's lead and give the police the right to immediately remove the squatters and
not have to go through that formal process of eviction. Unbelieved you, I'll
contact you know, I'll get a hold of the Governor's office, the Speaker
of the House, Stevens. Huffman, the Senate. This has got to
be the law in Ohio. And I talked to Rob Sanders. The same
thing's happening in Kentucky. It's popular now among squatters to move from place to
place and they monitor a house they move in and they claim to have a
verbal lease, or they dummy up a lice online and say Tony Bender owns
the house in Montford Heights, and they go online the Recorder's office, Tony
Bender owns this house. He's not here, and we'll go online get a
lease. Sign Tony Bender's name to the lease. Yes, he's the landlord,
but I have I got a two year lease. And they dumb me
up some payment of one type or another, and they're in the house.
The cops shows up and says, wait a minute, you're not supposed to
be. Well, here's the lease. Tony Bender signed the lease, he's
the landlord, and I got it enough. Cop says, well, I'm
done. Then you got to go to court. That takes months. It's
unbelievable. It is unbelievable. I'm hoping that our state catches up to what
and uses for it is an example, and our lawmakers pass a bill that
allows it, does not keep this. You know, from that we can
protect ourselves. But in the meantime, you can take steps to a victor
squatter. And the first thing would be is that you want to contact your
local police department and hopefully get that trespassed charge at the very least. And
then there's other things going on like if they're vandalizing, they're using drugs in
there. If you can find out any of these kind of things, then
he's giving some actions that the police can take, so you can try to
use the criminal justice system in that way. Make sure that right, make
sure that you are trying, you know, you're preparing to prove your case
in court with videos, photographs, any damage or proof of this squatting.
Make sure that see what your utility bills have been changed into their name.
Make sure they're not paying you know, you're paying your property taxes. They're
not. I mean, there's lots of things that they're doing to stay in
the property. It's really a major problem, and now we're seeing it all
over Twitter. To sit there and teach people more of this, how to
do it and take advantage of this old lall we got to run. Melissa
Powers, thank you, and TikTok has videos telling squatters how to do this.
Melissa Powers, you're doing great work, and once again, thank you
for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show this Tuesday afternoon. Thank you very much.
Yeah, welcome, Thanks for having me. Bell I have a great
day, Melissa Powers. Let's continue with more. We're going to talk about
this after the news on news radio seven hundred WLW.