Dr. Jonathan Tobias, a former pathology fellow at the Hamilton County morgue, will find out today whether he'll be acquitted of gross abuse of a corpse charges stemming from his interaction with a Mount Auburn photographer.

        On Tuesday, Dr. Tobias' attorneys told Common Pleas Judge Norbert Nadel that the prosecution has failed to prove its case against the 31-year-old pathologist.

Tobias

        “The state's case had its own legs cut out from under it from the start,” said Christian Jenkins, one of Dr. Tobias' attorneys. “There has been no evidence that he took any of the photos ... or helped (Thomas) Condon take a photo or helped him pose a body.”

        Both men are defendants in a trial in which each faces 12 counts of gross abuse of a corpse. The charges stem from hundreds of negatives found during a police search of Mr. Condon's Walnut Hills studio.

        The negatives contained images of autopsied bodies posed with inanimate objects. Officials contend Mr. Condon, who was initially allowed inside the morgue to work on a proposed video project for the coroner, took these images without permission.

        Dr. Tobias is accused of helping him.

        On Tuesday, Judge Nadel denied a similar motion offered by Mr. Condon's attorneys, saying that the state had proved that Mr. Condon's trial should continue.

        But he said he'll decide Dr. Tobias' request today.

        The requests for acquittal are standard procedures in criminal trials. Defense attorneys typically ask a judge to throw out the case after prosecutors have presented their evidence.

        According to court testimony, Mr. Condon was allowed into the morgue in August 2000 as part of a proposed project to update a training video of autopsy procedures. But when plans for the updated video were nixed, officials failed to spread the word among morgue personnel that Mr. Condon no longer had access.

        Defense attorneys say morgue officials were aware that Mr. Condon wanted to do a photo project of his own and had talked openly with them about doing his project.

        Terry Daly, an administrative aide in the coroner's office, testified Tuesday that he did not put any limits on Mr. Condon's access.

        Also on Tuesday, relatives of those in Mr. Condon's pictures blasted the 29-year-old professional photographer.

        “I don't understand. I'll never understand,” said Ron Melton, whose brother, Perry Melton, was killed in an industrial accident last year. His body was one of 12 posed and photographed. “(Perry) was not a work of art — by no means. (Mr. Condon) took away his dignity.”

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