Strong words, flaring tempers and stinging rebukes highlighted closing arguments Friday in the corpse abuse trial of photographer Thomas Condon and former Hamilton County Morgue pathology fellow Dr. Jonathan Tobias.

Condon

Tobias

        After warning jurors that he would speak plainly, Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Longano attacked a contention by Mr. Condon's attorney, H. Louis Sirkin, that his client's project was art meant to give a different perspective on death.

        “How can Mr. Sirkin identify this (expletive) project as art?” Mr. Longano said.

        At those words, Mr. Condon became visibly upset and whispered to his attorney, who vehemently asked Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Norbert Nadel to sanction the prosecutor.

        The judge cautioned jurors to rely on testimony and evidence, an admonition he had to make repeatedly during Mr. Longano's closing.

        The two men each face a dozen charges of gross abuse of a corpse, stemming from hundreds of negatives seized during a search of Mr. Condon's Walnut Hills studio earlier this year. The photos depict autopsied bodies posed with inanimate objects.

        Mr. Condon is accused of treating a corpse “in a manner that would outrage reasonable community sensibilities” without authority.

        Dr. Tobias is accused of helping him.

        Prosecutors say Mr. Condon never had permission and that Dr. Tobias and he were working together.

        But defense attorneys have built their case on testimony from both defense and prosecution witnesses who said just about every morgue employee believed Mr. Condon had permission to do what he was doing.

        In his closing statement, Marc Mezibov, Dr. Tobias' attorney, called the prosecution's case a “sham” and a “farce.” Mr. Mezibov told jurors “No evidence has been produced to prove that Dr. Tobias did anything wrong or anything criminal.”

        Jurors will begin their deliberations Monday.

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