Appeals court orders new trial in trailer theft case

The Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals has reversed the conviction of a man for his role in a trailer theft ring operating in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, sending the case back to Wood County Common Pleas Court for a new trial.
Kevin R. Baldwin was sentenced in July 2018 to eight years in prison for receiving stolen property and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
His appeal contended the common pleas court erred when it allowed the prosecution to present a recorded phone call in which Baldwin’s brother threatened Michael Griffin, a witness for the prosecution.
“The trial court abused its discretion when it permitted the state to present evidence that Baldwin’s brother threatened Griffin. Baldwin was not shown to have been involved in those threats, and the threats were not offered for some other purpose such as to explain why a witness’s story had changed or why a witness did not immediately come forward to police,” the appeals court wrote. “Reversal is required because the state failed to prove that the error in admitting the evidence did not affect Baldwin’s substantial rights.”
According to court records, more than 40 trailers were reported stolen between November 2013 and June, 2017 including several stolen while parked or in storage in Lake Township and Woodville.
Evidence presented at the trial showed Kevin Baldwin and a co-defendant, William Gentry, then living in Woodville, hatched a scheme to sell the trailers with Baldwin acquiring the trailers and Gentry finding third-party buyers.
Six victims who had their trailers stolen testified at the trial along with an investigator from the Ohio Department of Motor Vehicles assigned to the vehicle theft unit of the Ohio State Highway Patrol; Griffin, who admitted to stealing four trailers he sold to Baldwin, and Gentry.
Griffin testified he stole approximately four trailers, sold them to Baldwin and delivered them to Baldwin’s residence. He told the court he received a phone call and text messages from Baldwin’s brother the night before his trial testimony, threatening that something would happen if he testified and calling him an “undercover police snitching bitch.”
The call was played and the text messages were displayed for the jury during the trial.
Baldwin had appealed the verdict in 2019, claiming the prosecution didn’t offer sufficient evidence to support his conviction but the appeals court upheld the lower court decision in February 2020. The appeals court agreed to reopen the case again when he claimed the trial court abused its discretion by denying a motion for mistrial over the threatening phone call to Griffin.
Three charges against Gentry were dropped. He pled to engaging in corrupt activity and he was placed on probation for five years and ordered to make restitution to the victims.