The defense attorney for Jaysen Bell, the Batavia Township resident accused of raping his two teenage foster sons, has accused an Amelia police officer of misleading a Clermont County judge in order to obtain a search warrant for Bell’s Batavia Township home.
Bell, 31, who has pleaded not guilty to one charge of rape, three charges of sexual battery, one charge of gross sexual imposition, and three charges of sexual imposition, appeared before Clermont County Court of Common Pleas Judge Robert T. Ringland on April 23.
Jon Paul Rion, the private attorney defending Bell in the case, requested that the five computers and other items seized from Bell’s home on Aug. 9 be excluded from evidence in the case claiming that Amelia police officer Jeff Wood had misled Municipal Judge Thomas Herman in order to procure the search warrant, an allegation that the police officer denies.
Under questioning from Rion in court April 23, Amelia police officer Wood acknowledged that he omitted some discrepancies in the statements of witnesses in requesting the search warrant from Judge Herman; those discrepancies included inconsistencies about the type of the alleged sexual molestation and the dates when they occurred.