Workman is found guilty on all counts

WAPAKONETA - A Montezuma man was found guilty Friday afternoon of 78 counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance and one count of tampering with evidence.

Timothy Scott Workman, 44, 7240 state Route 219, showed little reaction as Auglaize County Common Pleas Judge Frederick Pepple announced the verdict. The decision came less than two hours after jurors began deliberating at the conclusion of a trial that began Monday.

Pepple ordered a presentence investigation, noting the maximum sentence on the charges is 354 years in prison.

No sentencing date has been set. Pepple said he did not want to interfere with other cases Workman faces in Mercer County Common Pleas Court and U.S. District Court in Toledo. He ordered the defendant to be returned to the Lucas County Jail in Toledo during the interim.

Workman testified several hours Friday morning denying he had taken photos of the alleged victims - ages 16 and 17 at the time - in various stages of undress.

He also denied being the man captured in a mirror reflection in several photographs the state had entered into evidence. The flash obscured the photographer's face but the image included his arms as well as a T-shirt design in a photo taken March 14, 2013, at a Wapakoneta motel, according to prosecutors.

"That's not me," Workman said. "I can tell you, those arms are huge." His arms are not that large, he said.

He also pointed to the shirt in the image, adding it appeared to be too small for the wearer. Workman was wearing a similar shirt with the words "Great Bambino" on the night of his Sept. 30, 2013, arrest, prosecutors said. Workman testified all the employees at his heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business had similar shirts as did clients who came to his gym and other mixed martial arts fans.

Defense attorney Ralph Bauer asked Workman why he thought he was in court. The defendant quickly responded he had upset the alleged victims and another man, who owns a martial arts gym in Bellefontaine.

Workman testified he appeared "buck naked in a boatload of photographs" because he and a friend/employee had been dancing and having sex with a lot of people. He added the photos were distributed at clubs and bachelor parties.

Bauer pointedly asked the defendant whether he had removed metadata - time and location information - from photos of the two Mercer County women.

"I didn't even know about metadata until I came to this place," Workman responded. He also denied disabling GPS capability on his Samsung cellphone that would have indicated where photos had been taken.

Workman also denied asking fellow Auglaize County Correction Center inmate Roy Hatfield to make the alleged victims disappear or offering him a job as Hatfield had testified.

"I wouldn't hire a dude like that," he said in reference to Hatfield, who had been charged with possession of heroin.

On cross-examination, Auglaize County Assistant Prosecutor Andrew Augsburger produced a letter Workman had written to Amanda On.

"Is she your girlfriend?" the assistant prosecutor asked. Workman emphatically responded "hell, no."

Workman said in the letter he had gone to a St. Marys motel the night of his arrest to fix a large plumbing problem, prosecutors said. Augsburger noted motel assistant manager Deb Graham had testified earlier in the week the business had never hired Workman's company.

The prosecutor asked why the defendant had given that reason for being at the motel. He responded that he had no intention of telling On - the mother of his young son - he was going there to have sex with several women, but not the victims.

Augsburger again referred to the "love letter" which reportedly contained a marriage proposal.

"She wasn't your girlfriend," he inquired once more and Workman emphatically replied "absolutely not."

After the defense rested its case, the prosecutor called the two alleged victims back to the stand. Both denied dancing for anyone or even knowing the friend/employee Workman had mentioned. They also said Workman was the only person they knew with a Great Bambino shirt.

"The girls may be young and naive, but they told the truth," the prosecutor said in regard to the alleged victims. "To buy the defense, you have to buy a conspiracy."

Augsburger said if someone had planted the evidence prosecutors would not have needed an administrative inventory and two search warrants to locate it. The evidence included a cellphone and memory cards containing nearly 20,000 photographs including half of a pornographic nature.
  "There is no conspiracy," he added. "Scott Workman took the photographs."

Bauer told the jurors Workmen had repeatedly denied taking photographs of minors and had no knowledge of any text messages.

Phone records indicated he had spent 19 seconds texting one of the victims, who had worked out at his gym prior to a March 14 photo shoot.

"Nineteen seconds ... you can't say much in 19 seconds," Bauer added.

Later text messages proposing additional photo shoots and a video came from an account linked to Christy LLL. Augsburger maintained the name was Workman's alter ego.

Workman's Mercer County charges include engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, attempting to commit an offense, promoting prostitution and tampering with evidence. The federal case involves possessing firearms and ammunition despite court orders not to have them due to prior convictions for aggravated robberies in the Dayton/Cincinnati area.