Ashli Ford jury deadlocks; Pattakos whines about news outlet
First Amendment attorney blocks reporter's camera, about StayTunedSandusky, makes false claims
SANDUSKY — A jury was unable to reach a verdict in the trial of convicted podcaster Ashli Ford on forgery, identity and mortgage fraud charges on Tuesday, causing a celebration from her supporters and a decision to bring her back into court later this year.
“We will be re-trying the case,” Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter told Judge Beverly McGookey, who scheduled Ford’s new trial to start at 9 a.m. Sept. 28 over defense attorney Peter Pattakos’ objections.
Pattakos claimed to have a busy trial scheduled coming up and he rejected the judge’s first suggested dates for a new trial. McGookey then settled on Sept. 28, but Pattakos said he has a trial already scheduled in Summit County that week.
“Then you will have time to get a continuance,” she told him.
Pattakos, who earlier in the day offered a lecture about the First Amendment, angrily approached me in an open area outside the courtroom after jurors were dismissed. I asked him for a reaction and instead of providing one he questioned my right to report on Ford’s trial. He suggested I was a drunk from Washington, D.C., and ridiculed the size of my Substack audience. His client, Ford, often boasts about having a big platform and being a major influencer.
As Pattakos was ridiculing me with his rapid fire planned attack on the StayTunedSandusky Substack, Ezekiel Ford, Ashli Ford’s disabled husband, breezed by and bumped or kicked at my computer bag and tripod, mumbling obscenities. Meanwhile, former Norwalk Reflector reporter Terry Burton, who has established an on-again, off-again working relationship with Ford, was snapping photos of the encounter.
Pattakos did not offer any reaction when asked about the jury’s inability to find Ford guilty, or not guilty on any of the charges. Baxter was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier in the day, Pattakos claimed the prosecution 20 years ago of Elsebeth Baumgartner was one of the violations of the First Amendment in history, and suggested if he’d been an attorney then the outcome would have been much different.
“It’s too bad I wasn’t an attorney then,” he said.
Pattakos interrupted an earlier livestream broadcast at StayTunedSandusky.com, at first offering a lesson about the First Amendment but then deciding the Substack audience wasn’t worthy of his time. He did not answer when asked directly if Ford’s practice of making demonstrably false allegations against people she perceives as oppositional to her interests, he deflected. He claimed prosecutorial misconduct and retaliation are the reasons Ford was prosecuted, claims he’s made before in the same manner as Ford makes claims, without evidence.
Later on Tuesday, someone at Pattakos’ office was posting demonstrably false information about Ford’s trial at the firm’s Facebook page.
