Ashli Ford's pressure on victim's mom OK'd by probation officer
Law director also is protected from podcaster's rants while others are not
NORWALK — The city law director’s office won’t pursue charges against Ashli Ford after the mother of a woman killed eight years ago in a suspicious and tragic accident complained she was being harassed by the convicted podcaster.
Ford continues to promote herself on social media as an advocate working for Tricia Shepard’s family, despite Shepard’s pleas for her to stop. Her anguish at losing her daughter, Katelynn, and the tragic, unresolved way she died, is made worse every day by Ford’s crass exploitation of her family, Tricia said.
“She’s stabs my broken heart every time she posts her garbage on Facebook about Katelynn, pretending she’s helping,” Tricia said. “All she’s doing is feeding her own demented ego. She’s delusional.”
Tricia said Ford’s constant claims that she’s an “investigator” and an “advocate” who’s been asked to help, make her physically sick. She’s asked Ford to stop, she said, repeatedly. She’s depressed and feels alone, Tricia said, unable to reconcile why the sheriff or Ford’s probation officer won’t help.
“I can’t understand why they don’t want to stop her.”
Please don’t forget her
As of this morning, nobody from the sheriff’s office has re-contacted her since she filed the complaint March 10. Officials haven’t even told Tricia they don’t intend to help her. It took several records requests to the sheriff’s office before StayTunedSandusky learned about the March 10 “no charge” memo from Law Director Stuart O’Hara’s office. We told her about the decision when we re-contacted contacted Tricia this morning for this story. It’s not known why the sheriff’s office, or the law director didn’t tell her about the decision.
According to the deputy’s report of his investigation into Tricia’s complaint, she provided screenshots of social media messages and a detailed log of unwanted contact from Ashli that she says left her feeling hunted in her own home. These “receipts” document not only the frequency of the communication but the specific nature of it—a pattern of Ford allegedly using the tragedy of Katelynn’s death as a recurring “hook” to force Tricia into a public dialogue she had repeatedly and explicitly declined.
Decision with no ‘why’
As a felon on probation for the intimidation convictions, the law director’s office could have explored whether Ford’s actions constitute a violation of her court-ordered supervision. It’s unknown what, if any, criminal charges might have been considered.
For Tricia, the complete lack of accountability following the “no charge” decision is completely frustrating. Assistant Law Director Scott Christophel effectively killed her complaint and any chance for a reprieve in a one-sentence memo with zero legal context or explanation for why. He didn’t even let Tricia know about his decision or offer any explanation to her.
Since that memo was filed, Christophel has not returned phone calls seeking clarity on the decision. By refusing to explain the “why” to the victim or the public, the Law Director’s office has sent a chilling message: Just go away.
O’Hara and assistant law director Scott Christophel did not respond to questions from StayTunedSandusky.com, including concerns about potential conflicts with the office making a decision. O’Hara is one of four “protected” victims the court recognizes from Ford’s felony intimidation convictions last year. He’s shielded by the court from attacks by Ashli Ford, who defends threats she makes toward public officials and others, contending it’s her First Amendment right to threaten, ridicule and accuse people regardless of whether what she says is true.
O’Hara is protected from Ford, but Tricia Shepard is not, according to Kelli Bias, the chief probation officer in Erie County. Tricia Shepard filed a complaint against Ford earlier this month, and Bias has acknowledged receiving two other complaints about ford, including one from me alleging she falsely reported to the sheriff’s office that she was being harassed by me.
Bias said her hands are tied.
“Our authority is limited to the case she is on Community Control Sanctions for only,” Bias told StayTunedSandusky. “Like any other probationer on supervision the Court will be notified if there are any violations.”
Tarnished badge
The sheriff also is compromised. The state is investigating Corbin for his role in delaying the Amanda Dean murder investigation for nearly six years. Corbin also has failed to provide Tricia and her family any updates on the investigation into Katelynn’s death since 2018, and he refuses to talk with her about it.
The Ohio Attorney General’s office is withholding records from its investigation of Corbin, and has refused to say if it is considering charges against the sheriff. Corbin has not responded to press inquiries in about three years. There’s speculation he’s preparing to step down and retire, but he’s not commented on that, either.
It’s unknown why O’Hara, Corbin, or someone else from their offices or from the county prosecutor’s office and the Ohio Attorney General’s office all refuse to speak with both Tricia and the press about Katelynn’s death or Tricia’s complaint about Ford. It’s also unknown why Corbin has never asked the state crime lab, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, to look at the Katelynn Shepard death case.
They’ve all refused for nearly eight years to talk with her or explain the status of the investigation into Katelynn’s death, Tricia said. It’s Ford trying to fill that void by recycling what’s already been reported by the Sandusky Register and the Norwalk Reflector in past news stories, she said, but Ford is fabricating lurid details that aren’t true.
“She’s making it up to make a buck off my daughter’s death,” Tricia said. “It’s disgusting.”
At Ford’s trial last year prosecutors said Ford exploits crime victims as clickbait. Ford’s legal troubles are continuing this year. She has until April 18 to negotiate a plea agreement with prosecutors or face trial in May on forgery and fraud charges. She allegedly forged her ex-husband’s signature on loan documents and obtained a $30,000 COVID relief loan to secure a new mortgage in 2020 even though she was living in the home with her new husband, Ezekiel Ford, at the time. The home was foreclosed last year, and the couple was recently court-ordered to vacate the residence.
Burned in her heart
Katelynn Shepard was just 21 and a corrections officer with the Erie County sheriff’s office when she was killed in a one-vehicle accident July 9, 2018. Her burnt-out pickup was found, in a ravine off Town Line Road 187 in New London, about 12 hours after she was reported missing.
Katelynn’s remains, which had to be identified through DNA, were on the passenger side of the vehicle and investigators were never able to determine what caused the fire or why the vehicle went off the road. They also never determined who was driving the truck when it crashed, although Corbin, weeks after Katelynn was killed, said “no stone would go unturned” in the quest to find out exactly what happened.
Tricia, her family, and the community have been waiting for Corbin to provide them some explanation, a status update or an honest conversation, ever since. What’s wrong with this man that he will not have one with her? What’s so desperately wrong with county government that it would allow a victim of crime to be treated this way — year after year — with no reprieve from that kind of cruelty?
The Accountability Gap
Stuart O’Hara: Victim of Ford’s past crimes, yet his office declined her new harassment charges. No comment provided.
Tricia Shepard: Grieving mother and harassment complainant. Received zero communication from prosecutors regarding the dropped case.
Kelli Bias: Erie County chief probation officer received at least three formal complaints regarding Ford’s behavior since sentencing. Still no word on a Violation of Probation (VOP) hearing.
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