Man sues city after jailed on questionable warrant, asks for damages

MARION — A Columbus man currently in prison for drug trafficking has sued the City of Marion and an Ohio Highway Patrol trooper after he says he was arrested on an invalid warrant on an unrelated charge.

Kimmy V. Gable, of Columbus, is seeking more than $25,000 in punitive damages after he was held overnight in jail on a warrant that he says was invalid in March 2017, according to court records.

In a civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Gable's lawyers assert his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated after he was arrested on a warrant that was issued after the statute of limitations for the offense had expired.

Marion Municipal Court Judge Teresa Ballinger signed off on the warrant, which Ohio Highway Patrol Trooper Jeremy Bice applied for in December, months after Bice had pulled Gable over on U.S. 23 and found suspected hash oil in the car, according to the complaint and exhibits filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

The complaint says that Bice did not issue a citation on Feb. 20, 2016 when he made the traffic stop. But 10 months later, Bice filed a complaint against Gable in December, alleging he possessed hashish oil that day, according to court records.

"I think this was odd. This was exceptionally long," said Brian Jones, the attorney representing Gable, referring to the length of time between the offense date and the charges.

Gable was ultimately charged was possession of marijuana, a minor misdemeanor, on Dec. 20 in Marion Municipal Court. However, the statute of limitations on prosecuting minor misdemeanors is six months, according to the Ohio Revised Code.

The case was dismissed within two days of Gable being taken into custody in March 2017, when it was brought to the court's attention that the statute of limitations on prosecuting him for the alleged offense had passed, according to the complaint and to Marion Municipal Court records.

But Marion City Law Director Mark Russell asserted the crime for which the warrant was issued was erroneously marked a minor misdemeanor and that the trooper had sought the warrant based on the crime being a misdemeanor of the fourth degree.

Possession of hashish is a fourth-degree misdemeanor if it weighs between one and two grams in liquid concentrate, according to Ohio law.

Trooper Bice wrote and signed a request for a warrant on Dec. 16, 2016, according to exhibits filed with the U.S. District Court. But the request does not make reference to how much the drug weighed or what level of offense the drug possession was.

"An odor of raw marijuana was detected inside the vehicle. A search of the vehicle was conducted and marijuana, hash oil and paraphernalia was located," reads the affidavit Bice wrote. "The Marion County prosecutor declined F5 possession on the marijuana hash oil."

But the warrant itself, which was signed by Ballinger on Dec. 20, notes that the degree of the offense is an "MM," or minor misdemeanor.

Russell said he expects the City of Marion will be removed from the case as a defendant.

"We believe that the case will be dismissed against the City of Marion," he said. "There's no basis for the city to be found liable."

As for the Highway Patrol trooper, a division of the Ohio Attorney General's Office is representing him. A colonel with the Highway Patrol, Paul Pride, was also named in the lawsuit as Bice's supervisor.

A message left with the attorney from the attorney general's office did not return a call by press time.

A status conference among the parties is scheduled to take place at 1:30 p.m. July 17, according to the court docket.

Some of the court proceedings have been rescheduled because Gable is currently confined in a state prison after being convicted of drug trafficking charges out of Licking County.

svolpenhei@gannett.com

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