News Releases

 In honor of National Crime Victims' Rights Week, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has awarded nearly a dozen Ohio crime victim service agencies with funding to promote the resources available to victims of crime.

 Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced today that DNA testing conducted as part of his Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) Testing Initiative has now resulted in more than 1,000 hits in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database.

 Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced today that a Gallipolis man will spend at least fifteen years in prison following his conviction for the rape of a child in 2012.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today announced a lawsuit against Heath Motor Sports, LLC and owner Paul Dague. The Attorney General’s lawsuit accuses the owner and dealership of engaging in unfair and deceptive business practices by failing to provide consumers with motor vehicle titles, as required by Ohio law. 

 Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer, Warren County Sheriff Larry Sims, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Acting Special Agent in Charge William Hayes announced today that an ongoing investigation has led to the seizure of more than a quarter of a million dollars and nearly 50 pounds of cocaine.

 Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Ashtabula County Sheriff William Johnson announced today that, following a joint investigation by the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Office and the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), an Ohio woman is now charged with murder in connection with the poisoning death of her husband in 2009. 

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced today that civil charges have been filed against TEEN USA and Darien E. Smith of Cleveland for violating the terms of an Assurance of Discontinuance — a legal agreement the organization made with the Attorney General’s Office in November of 2013. According to the agreement, Smith agreed to dissolve TEEN USA, to not hold any position in or participate in soliciting donations for any charitable organization in Ohio, and to pay $10,000 to the Attorney General’s Office. Through TEEN USA, teens went door-to-door selling candy, but the money raised was not used for charitable purposes.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today rejected the petition for the proposed “Bottle Bill for Ohio” because the petitioners did not submit the minimum valid signatures required.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced today that Ohio consumers will begin receiving account credits or checks this week in settlement funds from a 2012 e-books price-fixing lawsuit. The lawsuit was brought by Attorney General DeWine and attorneys general from 32 other states against Apple, Inc. and five of the six largest e-book publishers in the country for conspiring to fix the price of e-books. Those e-book publishers — Hachette Book Group Inc., HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Simon & Schuster Inc., Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC, d/b/a Macmillan, and Penguin Group (USA) Inc. — settled the claims against them for a total nationwide payment of $166 million, of which approximately $4.7 million will be distributed to Ohio consumers. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York approved those settlements on December 6, 2013.