HAMILTON — A Butler County judge said he will render a verdict this morning in the case of an ex-sheriff's deputy accused of three counts of rape and one count of kidnapping.

        Judge Matthew J. Crehan on Wednesday finished hearing testimony in the case of Kirk Kash, 38, of Colerain Township. Mr. Kash, who formerly served as an officer in Sharonville, resigned from the Butler sheriff's office earlier this year after accusations against him surfaced.

        A 19-year-old Hamilton woman alleges that, on Jan. 18, he forced her to perform oral sex after he caught her and an 18-year-old man having a sexual encounter in a vehicle parked outside a nightclub at Forest Fair Mall in Fairfield.

        The defense presented no witnesses in Common Pleas Court. Instead, defense lawyer Jim Cooney attacked the credibility of the complaining witness, saying, “She forgot lots of things.”

        The young woman, whose name The Enquirer is withholding, sat in a corner of the courtroom, holding her mother's hand, and at times became tearful while Mr. Cooney spoke. Across the room, Mr. Kash's wife sat with his supporters.

        Mr. Cooney said the young woman's credibility was questionable because her statements differed substantially from those of Mike Pierson, now 19, of Celina, the young man with whom she was being intimate.

        But Butler County Assistant Prosecutor Steve Tolbert said, “What she did or didn't do with Mike Pierson ... is not an issue in this case.”

        He said what matters are her statements about what then-Deputy Kash did.

        Those statements, Mr. Tolbert said, “have remained constant and have never changed to this day.”

        Mr. Tolbert cited medical and scientific evidence he said supports her contentions.

        Medical reports show redness in her throat, consistent with forced oral sex. DNA analysis shows her cells mixed with his semen in a stain on his Butler sheriff's uniform shirttail.

        Also, Mr. Tolbert said, Mr. Kash didn't behave like a person who had done nothing wrong.

        He left the mall without being excused from duty, wrecked his vehicle and abandoned it, called in sick to work 12 hours before he was to report to the sheriff's office and had already laundered his undergarments by the time police arrived at his home, Mr. Tolbert said.

        But Mr. Cooney said the inconsistencies in the young woman's statements should constitute “reasonable doubt,” enough for the judge to acquit his client.

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