HAMILTON — The two candidates for Butler County prosecutor traded jabs Friday over the issue of criminal cases lost by failing to prosecute them on time.

        Republican Robin Piper has criticized the prosecutor's office for having criminal charges dismissed in certain cases it failed to bring the cases to trial in sufficient time.

        He has said he never lost a case on time during 14 years as assistant prosecutor.

        But Butler County Prosecutor Dan Gattermeyer, Mr. Piper's Democratic opponent, disputed that Friday.

        He produced documents showing that a violation of the state's speedy-trial law caused a Butler County judge to dismiss a rape case in August 1994.

        The suspect was charged with raping two men. The judge's dismissal order lists Mr. Piper as the assistant prosecutor.

        “(Mr. Piper) stated that he never once lost a case on time limits,” Mr. Gattermeyer said. “It's a lie.”

        But Mr. Piper said when the case was presented to the grand jury in December 1993, he was in Chillicothe helping prepare for the prosecution of inmates involved in the Lucasville prison riot.

        He said he was placed on the case after the time limit had expired.

        “This is just more fabrication on the part of Gattermeyer,” Mr. Piper said.

        The speedy-trial issue became a hot topic in the race in June when an arson case was dismissed because the suspect sat in the county jail for 90 days without a trial, a violation of state law.

        Prosecutors said the clerk of courts office didn't notify them that the suspect had been arrested. But the clerk of courts office produced copies of notices that they said had been sent to the prosecutor's office.

        Mr. Piper said that unlike the arson suspect, the rape suspect in the 1993 case didn't go free. The suspect was already in state prison when Hamilton police served him with warrants for the rape charges, he said.

        Mr. Gattermeyer admitted that he has lost two cases on time limits during 15 years in the prosecutor's office.

        In a 1996 robbery case, charges against two of three defendants were dismissed because the time limit expired, he said. He said he also lost a drug case years ago.

        Every assistant prosecutor loses a case on time limits at some point, he said. He said the arson case was the only one lost on time during the past year. He said he didn't have statistics of how many cases had been lost in that manner prior to 1999.

        “It can happen, and it's never good when it does,” he said. “But it doesn't happen very often. It's only a fraction of a percentage point of the cases.”

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