Saturday, February 19, 2000
Racer won't face further sex charges
Johns sentenced to 18 months
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON — Harveysburg racecar driver Jerry Johns will be spared another trial involving allegations that he supplied teenage girls with alcohol, showed them pornographic movies and asked them to pose provocatively for photographs.
The prosecutor's decision to drop a dozen charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor came a day after Mr. Johns was sentenced to 18 months in jail for charges stemming from the same investigation.
Mr. Johns, 55, who races in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series at Kil-Kare Speedway in Xenia, was scheduled to appear in Warren County Juvenile Court Feb. 24 for trial on the contributing charges.
“It's unlikely he would get any additional time on a conviction of the new charges,” said Andrew Sievers, an assistant prosecutor for Warren County.
“We can't see any advantage to putting the witnesses through a second trial if he is not going to receive punish ment for that.”
On Thursday, Judge James Heath gave Mr. Johns the maximum sentence after convicting him of a dozen charges of disseminating material harmful to juveniles and furnishing alcohol to minors.
Because the contributing charges stemmed from the same incidents, Mr. Johns could not, by law, receive more jail time, authorities said.
Mr. Johns came under investigation in February 1999, when a neighbor complained to Warren County Children Services that Mr. Johns' apartment, above a gas station he owned on Ohio 73, had become a hangout for young girls.
The caller also alleged Mr. Johns was taking nude photographs of some of the girls.
According to court records, 13 girls, some as young as 14, told sheriff's detectives that Mr. Johns gave them alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana during their 1998 visits.
Several teens said he took pictures of them in provocative poses, and others said Mr. Johns showed them adult videos.
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