Harassment, menacing trial opens

CELINA - The trial of a former Mercer County man who faces 26 misdemeanor charges claiming he had hindered law enforcement efforts and harassed family members began Tuesday in Celina Municipal Court.

Jeffrey Rasawehr, 54, faces 13 second-degree misdemeanor charges of obstructing official business and five charges of menacing by stalking and eight charges of telecommunications harassment, first-degree misdemeanors.

He has been accused of hindering law enforcement efforts and harassing family members in charges that were originally filed in 2016. Rasawehr and his defense team, Dennis E. Sawan, Dennis P. Sawan and Chris Sawan, claim the charges stem from bias in local law enforcement.

While the First Amendment protects many acts and speech, some speech, such as obscenity and libel, are not protected, Mercer County Prosecutor Matthew Fox said in his opening statement. Fox said the defendant's conduct had led his family to experience mental distress or fear of physical harm.

Additionally, Fox said Rasawehr's interactions with law enforcement had impeded officers from performing their duties.

Fox claimed the incidents leading to the charges started after Rasawehr had stopped making payments on farmland he was renting from his mother. Afterward, Rasawehr's marriage had unraveled and he was involved in a domestic dispute with his son, which the Mercer County Sheriff's Office handled, Fox added.

Rasawehr reportedly started posting comments online targeting family members, including accusing his mother and sister of letting their husbands die and claiming his family along with the sheriff's office had engaged in corrupt behavior, Fox said.

Fox recounted communications with law enforcement including a February 2015 incident in which Rasawehr reported his children had been kidnapped, leading to the obstructing official business charges. The children had reportedly actually been with their grandmother. Fox alleged the incident pulled law enforcement away from their duties when they were already busy due to white-out weather conditions that day.

Defense attorney Dennis E. Sawan told jurors the case was about three things: "revenge, shenanigans and free speech." After years of trying to punish Rasawehr, officials tacked on 26 charges without so much as a police report being filed, Sawan said. The communications between his client and the sheriff's office were made via the office's public website. He urged jurors to question if Rasawehr's correspondence truly made it impossible for officers to do their job and if reporting a crime was, in itself, a crime.

While his client's communications would not be considered politically correct, he said they were not criminal. He also said some statements the prosecution would present were only dubiously tied to his client, noting neither law enforcement nor the prosecution had submitted a subpoena to confirm Rasawehr had made the comments.

Sawan claimed his client's family had reason to dislike him, saying Rasawehr had turned in his brother-in-law who faced a warrant in Mercer County, creating a rift in the family. During Rasawehr's divorce, his client and his client's wife had been treated differently when filing reports with law enforcement, Sawan claimed.

The defense also said internal sheriff's office emails discussed a "paper-thin case" against Rasawehr for domestic violence after the incident with his son and claimed sheriff Jeff Grey had shown a "passion" for Rasawehr's case despite hesitation from Celina Law Director George Moore.

In regard to the incident in which Rasawehr reported his children had been kidnapped, Sawan said the court had granted his client rights to see his children, which his family had denied.

The prosecution called two Rasawehr family members to testify. The first was his mother, Rebecca. She said she and her husband, Kenneth, had started living on the Bryson Farm in 1964, where they raised their three children. She recalled having a good relationship with her son and said she and her husband left the farm after Kenneth Rasawehr had suffered a stroke.

She said Kenneth Rasawehr died in 2008. At a certain point after she had gifted 80 acres of farmland to each of her three children, she said Jeff Rasawehr stopped making trust payments, so she took the land away from him and gave it to her son-in-law, Mike Boley. Afterward, she claimed she and several other family members found green paint, broken glass and screws in their yards.

Sawan pointed out language in an exchange from Rebecca Rasawehr that expressed a desire to punish his client, and suggested that she'd revoked the 80 acres as a form of punishment.

Rebecca Rasawehr read several comments she identified as postings from Craigslist, the Sidney Daily News and Lima News websites. The posts suggested she had let Kenneth Rasawehr die, that her daughter, Joni Bey, did the same with her husband and that members of the family had colluded with Grey to cover up murder and other corrupt activities.

Some comments reportedly had been signed with Jeff Rasawehr's name, while Craigslist postings were not. Rebecca Rasawehr said she was convinced her son had written them all due to the hateful language and details in the postings, including how she'd put her husband in a chair before he'd died. She said not many people had known those details.

Sawan contended no direct evidence tied Jeff Rasawehr to the posts, noting people can go online using a fake name.

During the incident in which Jeff Rasawehr claimed his children had been kidnapped, Rebecca Rasawehr said she had been driving her grandchildren to a basketball game in Rockford. They hadn't heard the game was canceled due to the bad weather, she said. While she was driving, she was unaware her son was looking for his children nor did she know for certain he was going to be at her daughter-in-law's house waiting for them. Due to the white-out conditions, she turned back. She said she had learned only later that Jeff Rasawehr had been looking for the children.

She also said several members of her family and local law enforcement including Grey, but excluding Jeff Rasawehr, had met at her house in 2013.

However, this claim was denied by the defense's second witness, Joni Bey, Jeff Rasawehr's youngest sister, who said she was living in Florida at the time it was alleged to have occurred.

Bey said that her husband struggled with drug issues before he died in 2015, and she said his autopsy results showed he'd died of an overdose. Her husband was facing court proceedings after drugs had been found in his car and he spent some time in jail. The night he'd died, Bey said she'd checked on him several times because he hadn't been feeling well. Eventually, she went to sleep, not bothering to set her alarm because she figured her husband would not sleep. The next morning, she said she awoke to a call from the school saying her son was late, realized her son hadn't been taken to school and found her husband dead near the toilet.

Bey also read the comments posted online about her family from Craigslist, the Sidney Daily News and Lima News websites, which accused her specifically of allowing her husband to die because she'd wanted a divorce and had been having an affair. Some posts also claimed Grey and his deputies had covered up the death because her husband had reportedly contacted Jeff Rasawehr with proof of abuse within the sheriff's office and claimed her husband had been threatened by Rebecca Rasawehr.

Bey said she believed her brother had made the posts due to the details - not many people had known her husband had died by the toilet - and the consistent language, including the referrals to her and her family as "white trash." She said those claims have caused her to have panic attacks, and she said she was prescribed anxiety medication.

Asked what impact the events with her brother have had on her life, Bey teared up as she said simple things such as going to Walmart or attending her son's sporting events were difficult.

"It is hard to live," she said.

During cross examination, Bey said her husband had "freaked out" when he found out she'd been texting a friend, Rich Crouch, who is now her boyfriend.

Sawan noted that none of the comments she read were violent in nature or threatened her or her family and questioned why she felt unsafe around the defendant if that were the case. Bey responded that she didn't know what was going through her brother's mind if he believed the contents of the online postings, and said he needed help.

The trial was set to continue at 9 a.m. today in the Celina Municipal Court.