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7th District phone harassment case remanded
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: September 28, 2017
A Mahoning County trial court failed to make the necessary consecutive sentence findings in a telecommunications harassment case in which an appellant impersonated a peace officer, the 7th District Court of Appeals recently ruled.
It all began after Eric Brazina was held at the Mahoning County Jail in January 2014 on a prior telephone harassment case. He was sentenced to community control after pleading guilty to seven counts and was released from the jail.
During his jail stay, Deputy Alicia Hawkins reprimanded Brazina after catching him fonding himself, according to appellate records.
Additional phone harassment charges were filed against Brazina after Hawkins received a call on the jail’s phone line on April 8, 2014 from a man claiming to be “Brian Myers,” a Struthers police officer.
“Brian Myers” told Hawkins he was investigating a complaint against her and needed to set up a time to meet. He called again a few weeks later to meet Hawkins, but “Brian Myers” did not show for the meeting.
Hawkins then began receiving calls from “Kevin Bryant” from the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office, who claimed to want to meet to discuss jail operations.
Hawkins recognized his voice as the same person claiming to be “Brian Myers.”
She told her supervisors about each phone call and made reports on each incident.
Hawkins was given a recording device from a police task force to record the next phone call from the culprit. “Kevin Bryant” called the next day, and she recorded his call.
A detective recalled another phone harassment case and showed Hawkins a photo of Brazina. The deputy told the detective about the incident at the jail when she had to reprimand him for masturbating. She then identified Brazina’s voice as the person who called her.
Brazina said he called the deputy using a computer to “mess” with her because he felt she treated him unfairly at the jail.
After a jury trial, he was found guilty on four counts of telephone harassment, four counts of impersonating a peace officer and one count of disrupting public services.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison – one year for each telephone harassment count, 36 months for each impersonation charge and 18 months for disrupting public services. Each concurrent sentence ran consecutively to each other.
On appeal, Brazina argued the trial court imposed consecutive sentences without making the necessary findings under R.C. 2929.14.
“Appellant asserts 12 years for `prank phone calls’ is beyond what is necessary to carry out the purposes and principles of felony sentencing,” 7th District Judge Carol Ann Robb wrote in her 3-0 opinion. “He asserts no one was injured, there was no destruction of property, and there was no calculated expense.”
Although the appellate court found no abuse of discretion, the panel agreed the trial judge did not make sufficient statements to justify the protect the public or proportionality findings.
The sentence was reversed and remanded for a limited sentencing hearing on consecutive sentences.
Appellate judges Gene Donofrio and Mary DeGenaro concurred.
The case is cited State v. Brazina, 2017-Ohio-7500.