It is better to learn from our occasional victories, than from our many defeats.

February 5, 1998

Marijuana case against mom out

From the DAYTON DAILY NEWS
By Wes Hills

A marijuana case involving an Antioch College assistant professor and his family appeared to be going to pot Wednesday after Greene County Prosecutor William F. Schenck dismissed a drug charge against the professor's wife. Schenck said he is continuing to review the case.

While Schenck declined to discuss the matter, a court record shows the charge against Cheryl Ayrsman was dismissed Wednesday.

Mrs. Ayrsman, an instruction aide at a Yellow Springs elementary school, was charged last year with permitting her 22-year-old son, Shane Ayrsman, to abuse marijuana. Her attorney, Ronald Keller, has claimed that Mrs. Ayrsman was improperly charged in an effort by the Greene County Inter Agency Investigative Unit (previously Greene County Drug Task Force) to obtain forfeiture of her $205,000 home.

Shane Ayrsman and Mrs. Ayrsman's husband, Tom, 47, are each charged with four drug felony counts stemming from the seizure of 23 marijuana plants on their 1.5-acre Yellow Springs property Aug. 29, 1997.

Tom Ayrsman's attorney, Daniel J. O'Brien, said it's "a college-kid-small-amount-of-marijuana case" in which the task force set out to "bushwhack" Shane Ayrsman's parents to seize their home.

A 1996 investigation of the drug unit by the Dayton Daily News found numerous other irregularities, including:
A private detective's videotape of a task force member boasting that he could get witnesses to testify to anything because he gives them money. The task force claims that incident was staged and there was no wrongdoing.

A review of court records showed that drug defendants with no property or cash to offer the task force were five times more likely to be sent to jail than often bigger drug dealers who paid up to $83,000 to have their charges dismissed or reduced.

Obtaining some search warrants that Schenck later conceded "stunk." Despite such problems, Schenck insisted Wednesday that the "task force has done a reputable, good job for the past two years."