By Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LaShawn Pettus-Brown, the would-be developer who talked city officials into giving him $184,000, was back in Cincinnati Friday wearing a black-and-white-striped jail uniform.

Pettus-Brown appeared in U.S. District Court for a preliminary hearing on charges that he defrauded the city last year while overseeing the failed Empire Theater project.

The hearing was postponed until Tuesday. Meanwhile, his brief visit to court was the first public appearance for Pettus-Brown in Cincinnati since he disappeared early last year.

He sat silently next to his lawyer, Kenneth Lawson, as family members looked on. He spoke only when Magistrate Timothy Hogan cautioned him about making public statements about his case.

"Thank you, sir," he said. "I appreciate it."

Lawson asked to delay the hearing until next Tuesday. Then Hogan will decide whether to set a bond that could allow Pettus-Brown to go free pending his trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amul Thapar told the magistrate that Pettus-Brown should be held without bond. "We believe he is a flight risk," Thapar said.

Pettus-Brown spent more than a year on the run until his arrest in New York last month. He was nabbed after a prospective date ran his name through the Google Internet search engine and learned he was a wanted man.

Police and the FBI still are investigating the collapse of the Empire Theater project and how someone as inexperienced as the 27-year-old Pettus-Brown was able to secure so much financial help from the city.