Professor charged with soliciting police officer

HAMILTON - The University of Dayton on Tuesday suspended an associate professor after Hamilton police arrested him on two felony charges of soliciting an undercover police officer for sex over the Internet.

Police allege that Thomas L. Steiner, 42, solicited a police officer who was posing as a 14-year-old girl for sex and then drove to Hamilton to meet the supposed teen Monday. Instead of meeting the girl, though, Steiner was greeted by officers who arrested him.

Steiner was charged with importuning and attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. He was released on the condition he appear Thursday in Hamilton Municipal Court.

Steiner has taught in the university's department of economics and finance since 1993. He has no previous complaints, university officials said. He is suspended with pay pending a hearing at the university.

Police: Man in burning car had shot himself

CARTHAGE - The man found dead in his burning car Sunday afternoon shot himself to death, police said Tuesday.

Donald Alexander, 27, of Winton Terrace, was found about 2:15 p.m. in a car at Lebanon Avenue and 67th Street. When firefighters opened the car door, they pulled him from the car and found he had been shot.

The Hamilton County Coroner's Office ruled the death a suicide. Investigators still were trying to determine how the fire started.

Killer sentenced to 21 years in prison

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Charles J. Kubicki Jr. sentenced Carl Ford, 20, to spend a minimum of 21 years in prison for killing Bryan Lyons in February 2003.

Lyons had stopped at Jack's Carry Out & Drive Thru on Feb. 10 and was headed to his grandmother's house nearby when he was shot by Ford, prosecutors said.

The Evanston teen was found lying on the grandmother's lawn. He died about five hours later at University Hospital.

Prosecutors say Ford shot Lyons for his gray leather jacket.

"I just feel down because by big brother is dead and I can't see him any more," 10-year-old Patrick Lyons told Kubicki before the judge sentenced Ford Tuesday.

Ford pleaded guilty to charges of murder and aggravated robbery in the homicide.

Man won't be charged in threat against judge

A Cumminsville man accused of threatening to kill a Hamilton County Municipal Court judge last year after she sentenced him to spend six months in jail will not face charges relating to the threat.

Ronnie L. Clark, 26, was indicted on charges of retaliation and intimidation. Tuesday, based on a psychiatric evaluation, a judge determined Clark would never be competent to stand trial.

The case was closed. Clark was found incompetent and is being treated at Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Columbus, according to court records.

Clark was accused of threatening to kill Judge Ethna Cooper, now a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge, after she convicted him of aggravated menacing for an earlier threat to kill a Hamilton County sheriff's correction officer.