Holter Sentencing Protested, Calling for Stiffer Sentence
Protestors believing that Holter should have received a stiffer sentence. Photo by Madalyn Wood.
POMEROY, Ohio – For the first time since the 1980s, a protest was held at the Meigs County Courthouse.
Protestors, the first since the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated at the courthouse in the 1980s, were there to protest what they considered too light of a sentence for Edward J. Holter.
Edward J. Holter, 56, was sentenced by Judge Dean Evans in the Meigs County Court of Common Pleas April 25, 2018. Holter appeared with his attorney, Jeffrey Findley. Judge Evans upheld the recommendations of the Ohio Attorney General Special Prosecutor Angela Canepa in a plea agreement. Holter was sentenced to five years of community control, register as a Tier 1 Sex Offender, no contact with any of the victims in the case, and he can not employ or volunteer in any circumstance in which he is in contact with females under 18 years of age. Also part of the agreement was that Holter had to resign from Eastern Local School District where he had been employed as a bus driver, but Holter retired previously from the position. Holter was also forced to resign his position on the Meigs County Fair Board which he has done. A Tier 1 Sex Offender is a classification involving children as victims and Judge Evans went through explaining that to Holter. Holter will have to register with the County Sheriff for 15 years.
The protestors maintained, “What kind of message does this send to our children?”
Holter could have received prison time up to 18 months on each of the three counts.
For more on the court proceeding, click on the link below.
