BY WALT SCHAEFER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BATAVIA - Clermont County Sheriff's Detective Mark Penn made a lot of friends in the seven years he worked in county schools as the sheriff's Drug Enforcement Resistance Education (DARE) program officer.
One of the students he befriended was Eugene Michael "JR" Coogan Jr.
The Newtonsville man, now 22, admitted to him in April 1998 that he was one of two men who burned a wooden cross at a Newtonsville street corner that February to taunt a white woman and her black male friend. Newtonsville is a village on Ohio 131, about 15 miles east of Interstate 275.
Friday, Det. Penn, who left DARE about 18 months ago, received a certificate of appreciation from the FBI for his assistance in solving the cross-burning case, said Clermont County Sheriff A.J. "Tim" Rodenberg Jr.
The FBI also presented the department with a black 1997 Corvette convertible, seized in a Montgomery County drug trafficking case, to the sheriff for the DARE program.
"I knew JR since he was about 10 and we kept in touch," said Det. Penn, 38. "Some (friends) said he might know something (about the cross burning). I talked to him and stated I knew what was going on and it was time to fess up," Det. Penn said.
Mr. Coogan, now 22, also identified William Steven "Duke" Bonham II, now 27, of Goshen, as the man with him that night.
Both men were sentenced in U.S. District Court to 24 months in federal prison to conspiracy to violate rights and intimidation charges.
"I never dreamed of getting something like this in my lifetime," Det. Penn said.
