State seeks to link charges in involuntary manslaughter case

J Swygart, The Lima News, Ohio
·2 min read

May 18—LIMA — The attorney for a man charged with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly providing the illicit drugs that led directly to the death of a Lima man inside a motel on the city's east side last year had objected to the state's attempt to combine three cases against his client at trial.

Dejuan Lucas, 27, of Lima, is to stand trial beginning July 12 in the death of Dino Gerdeman following his indictment by a grand jury in October on charges of involuntary manslaughter and corrupting another with drugs, felonies of the first and second degrees, respectively, in the death of 59-year-old Gerdeman inside the Lima motel room on May 27 of last year.

Lucas is charged in separate cases with trafficking in heroin, trafficking in a fentanyl-related compound and trafficking in cocaine and possession of heroin.

Assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca King-Newman said Monday that the cases should be joined for purposes of trial because all the charges involved "show the same or similar courses of criminal conduct." The prosecutor said the state "believes Mr. Lucas is a drug dealer" based on numerous controlled buys of illicit drugs conducted with the defendant by confidential informants working for the West Central Ohio Crime Task Force.

Lucas' attorney, Anthony VanNoy, said that combining charges from unrelated cases "would be extremely prejudicial to the defendant and would prove nearly impossible for jurors to separate the fact pattern of all those cases which took place over the span of nearly a year."

VanNoy also said he will likely raise the issue at trial that his client is not the one who sold drugs to a co-defendant in the case.

According to court records, Lima Police Department officers responded shortly after midnight May 27, 2020, to Room 252 at the Travelodge motel, 805 S. Leonard Ave., in reference to a female causing a disturbance. Upon their arrival, police located several people inside the room along with a deceased male, identified as Gerdeman.

Kaelonda Peoples-Fuqua, 20, of Lima, was indicted last July on charges of involuntary manslaughter and corrupting another with drugs in connection with Gerdeman's death. Prosecutors dismissed the manslaughter charge as part of a plea deal with the woman, who allegedly purchased drugs from Lucas that caused Gerdeman's death.

She pleaded guilty in March to an amended count of attempted corrupting another with drugs, a third-degree felony, and has yet to be sentenced.

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