STATE STRIKES BACK: Baxter slams Pattakos' 'delusional' claims
In a scathing response, prosecutor dismantles attorney's corruption theories on behalf of Ashli Ford with sworn affidavits and extended sleepy juror video
SANDUSKY — Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter delivered a blistering response to a defense attorney’s claim that Ashli Ford is a victim of a corrupt judicial bench, calling the allegations “scurrilous, slanderous, and defamatory.”
Attorney Peter Pattakos filed two affidavits with the Ohio Supreme Court last month seeking to disqualify Common Pleas Judge Beverly McGookey and the county’s two other judges from presiding over Ford’s trial in September on charges related to an alleged scheme in which she fraudulently obtained $30,000 in COVID relief money in 2022 by using her ex-husband’s name and falsifying his income record. Prosecutors say she also forged loan documents to get a modified loan in her ex-husband’s name, without his knowledge or permission.
Pattakos contends McGookey colluded with Baxter to corrupt the jury in an effort to make sure she was convicted at an earlier trial in May. That trial ended in a hung jury.
Baxter, in the 17-page affidavit refuting Pattakos’ claims filed with the court Thursday, called Pattakos “delusional” and said the assertions he made and the affidavits he provided are “demonstrably unsupportable and patently false.”
Read Baxter’s affidavit here:
