A stack of handwritten love letters might be the key to permanent freedom for fired Harrison Police Chief Thomas Keenan.
The letters, recently discovered among belongings taken from Mr. Keenan's city office, were written by the Harrison employee who is accusing her former boss of rape.
At least some of the letters were written after the alleged sexual assaults, which she says occurred in the fall of 1996 and June 1997. A handwriting expert has attested that the letters were written by the woman.
Because the letters call into question the woman's credibility and undercut her accusations, Hamilton County prosecutors joined with defense lawyers Friday and asked that Mr. Keenan's $5 million bond be reduced.
''Although at this point we still don't know the full ramifications of these documents, we are willing to agree to a $50,000 bond,'' chief assistant prosecutor Thomas Longano said.
In addition to lowering the bond amount, Common Pleas Judge Steven Martin also ordered Mr. Keenan to wear an electronic monitoring unit and to avoid all contact with nine people - including his daughter and estranged wife - who have said they are afraid of him.
Mr. Keenan was released from the Hamilton County Justice Center about 8:15 p.m. Friday. He returned to his home on Treeline Court in Harrison for the first time since his Jan. 9 arrest on rape charges.
''The credit for this goes to (Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters),'' defense lawyer Firooz T. Namei said. ''As soon as Joe had the letters and looked at the evidence, he did this.''
Mr. Namei delivered the letters to Mr. Deters on Thursday.
The letters are filled with explicit sexual references. One of the more tame passages reads, ''I'm dreaming about you. Come get me.''
''I could not believe them,'' Mr. Namei said. ''They are filthy, they are silly, and they are childish. They are gross. They are the things that maybe you would see in a triple-X movie.''
They also were written by the same woman who is listed as the victim in a five-count indictment returned by a Hamilton County grand jury Jan. 9.
Mr. Keenan, 43, is charged with two counts of rape and three counts of gross sexual imposition. The 15-year veteran of the police department was fired the day after his arrest.
''Grand jury indictments are pretty serious, and I think that's what we based our decision on,'' Mayor Ruth Glasscock said Friday. ''Council acted, and it was not a rash decision, either. It took over two hours.''
She also said she was unaware of the letters or the possibility that the rape allegations were baseless.
Mr. Keenan has maintained his innocence since his arrest. He said he is the victim of a politically motivated, small-town conspiracy that began last year when he refused to fix a traffic ticket for the friend of a city official.
Weeks before his indictment, he filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the city because of the alleged conspiracy. Attached to the lawsuit was a sworn statement from the woman now accusing him of rape.
In the statement, she wrote that during conversations with city officials, she ''felt as though they were putting words into my mouth and trying to get me to make accusations against Chief Keenan that were not true.''
Mr. Keenan will be back in court Feb. 23 for a hearing on motions in his case. He is scheduled to stand trial March 2.
Until the letters were uncovered in a box of items from Mr. Keenan's office - fellow police officers packed the belongings after he was fired - it appeared as though he would spend the entire period before his trial in jail.
Last month, defense lawyers tried unsuccessfully to get a local appeals court to reduce the $5 million bond, which the defense considered unconstitutionally high.
Judge Martin has said he set a high bond because prosecutors characterized Mr. Keenan as a flight risk. Friday, before he agreed to reduce the bond, he asked prosecutors if they now thought that Mr. Keenan is not likely to leave the area.
''That's our belief, as much as humanly possible,'' Mr. Longano said.
Mr. Keenan also is awaiting trial on a charge of domestic violence for allegedly throwing a telephone at his adult daughter, who was living with him at the time.
Lisa Donovan contributed to this report.
