SANDUSKY — The criminal trial of Ashli Ford took a dramatic and potentially devastating turn Thursday.
A new filing filed today by Erie County Prosecutor Kevin J. Baxter laid bare the exact framework for Count 13 of the indictment: Perjury, a third-degree felony under Ohio law.
The filings reveal that prosecutors believe they caught Ford in a massive, easily disprovable lie right in the middle of her own defense testimony last month.
Battle of credibility
The drama unfolded during the trial’s defense phase on May 21. Ford took the stand as her own sole witness, attempting to defeat forgery-related allegations.
She testified in vivid detail about a visit to the Sandusky School Board of Education offices on August 16, 2022. According to Ford, her ex-husband, P.B., accompanied her to the second floor, where they both signed documents in front of her friend, at the time, who worked at the board offices but was also a notary public.
The problem? Both the ex-husband and the notary had already taken the stand during the State’s case-in-chief and unequivocally denied this ever happened. P.B. testified he wasn’t even in the building that day.
To dig herself out of that credibility hole, Ford doubled down. And that is where the State says she tripped the perjury wire.
The ‘Uncle Gene’ story
In an apparent effort to explain why the notary seemed nervous—and to add a layer of hyper-specific detail to make her story believable—Ford testified that her current husband’s uncle, Dr. Gene Sanders, spotted them.
