Tuesday, June 15, 1999

Father gets prison time

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Bell appealing sex conviction

BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Rev. Darrell Bell, right, with one of his attorneys, John Feldmeier, came to court Monday for sentencing. (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        HAMILTON — All Dawn Bell ever wanted from her father was an apology for repeatedly molesting her over eight years.

        The 21-year-old woman still hasn't received the apology. But Monday she felt she received a measure of justice as she watched a Butler County judge sentence her father, the Rev. Darrell Bell, to 17 to 50 years in prison.

        “The sentence was appropriate,” Ms. Bell said. “As long as he was sentenced to a year in prison for each year it happened to me, eight years, I would have felt fine with that.”

        The Rev. Mr. Bell, of Mid dletown, sat impassively between his attorneys as Common Pleas Judge H.J. Bressler pronounced his sentence. He said nothing during the sentencing hearing and declined to comment afterward.

        The Rev. Mr. Bell, 44, was accused of molesting Ms. Bell from the time she was 10 until she left home at age 18 to attend college.

        His first trial ended with a hung jury on 13 counts and an acquittal on one rape charge. But at his second trial, the jury convicted him of three counts of rape, three counts of felonious sexual penetration and five counts of sexual battery.

        He will be eligible for parole after 15 years. Judge Bressler did not sentence him on the felonious sexual penetration charges because they were connected with the rape charges.

        This case divided the Rev. Mr. Bell's family and the Middletown community, where he enjoyed a good reputation. Judge Bressler said he received numerous letters supporting the Rev. Mr. Bell from family members and members of his church and the community.

        But the judge told the Rev. Mr. Bell during the hearing that he would not allow the letters to influence the sentence he would impose.

        “Good deeds, a good reputa tion and community service are not a justification for the commission of those acts,” he said.

        Judge Bressler said he was perplexed why a man of the Rev. Mr. Bell's standing in the community would commit such crimes — especially against his own daughter.

        “We're not going to find a logical answer for an illogical act,” he said.

        Before sentencing, the judge declared the Rev. Mr. Bell to be a sexually oriented offender, but not the more serious designation of sexual predator.

        Under a recent Ohio law designed to protect children, when sexually oriented offenders are released from jail they must register in person with the sheriff's department every year for 10 years and report any change of address. The restrictions for a sexual predator are more stringent.

        At the request of defense attorney Martin Pinales, Judge Bressler ruled that the Rev. Mr. Bell can post $50,000 bond and can be placed under home incarceration while the case is under appeal. The clergyman, who has been associate pastor of Bethlehem Temple First Pentecostal Church and has worked for 25 years at AK Steel Corp., can leave his house only to go to work, to church and to his attorney's office.

        The judge said the Rev. Mr. Bell must pay the costs for his home incarceration.

        For the past three months, he has been held at the Butler County Jail under a $500,000 bond.

        Judge Bressler prohibited him from having any contact with Ms. Bell or with any family member who testified against him during the trial.

        In the courtroom, Ms. Bell, who is a fourth-year junior majoring in psychology and sociology at Bowling Green State University, sat with her 22-year-old brother, Darrell Steven Bell II, a friend and Estella Jackson, a victim's advocate with the prosecutor's office.

        Ms. Bell said her father's release from jail on home incarceration doesn't bother her.

        Despite all that has happened, she said she hopes that someday she and her father can mend their relationship.

        “I do long for that wholesome father-daughter relationship that probably isn't possible,” she said. “Hopefully, my father some day will ask God for forgiveness and then ask me for forgiveness.”

       

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