Once freed from death row, Richey to stay behind bars
Aug. 3—COLUMBUS — After having been released from death row 13 years ago, Scottish native Kenneth Richey is going to remain a resident of Ohio—behind prison bars—for another decade for threatening the Putnam County man who originally prosecuted him for murder.
Without comment, the Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear Richey's appeal of his conviction and 12-year sentence for retaliation in connection with threats in 2019 against Randall Basinger, a former prosecutor and judge, made via videos he posted on Facebook.
The court's decision came down on Richey's 58th birthday while he is incarcerated at Richland Correctional Institution in Mansfield. He was sentenced to three years for each of four felony counts to be served consecutively.
Mr. Basinger, then an assistant prosecutor, led the prosecution of Richey in 1986 for the death of 2-year-old Cynthia Collins in a Columbus Grove fire that Richey was convicted of setting. The prosecution contended that a jealous Rickey set the fire to kill an ex-girlfriend, but the fire claimed the toddler instead.
After his aggravated murder conviction was overturned in federal court amid questions about arson evidence used at trial, Richey pleaded guilty to lesser charges of attempted involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, and breaking and entering.
The plea deal led to a prison sentence that was slightly less than the 21 years he'd already served for murder, so he was able to walk out of death row and board a plane for Scotland. The son of an American father and Scottish mother, he held dual citizenship.
After repeated run-ins with the law in Scotland, he eventually returned to the United States where he again faced the inside of courtrooms multiple times. He posted Facebook videos in which he, without mentioning Mr. Basinger by name, threatened him and his family, the courts determined.
"Lost too many years," he said in one of those videos. "The (expletive) owes me. And I'm coming to get it. Look at my (expletive) eyes. Am I joking? I'll be seeing you. And you know who the (expletive) you are. Payback's a (expletive). Your kids, your grandkids, your whole family."
Acting as his own attorney, Richey urged Ohio's high court to overturn his conviction, saying he'd been betrayed by people with whom he'd trusted his Facebook page. It was a cousin and an ex-wife who reported the videos to authorities.
"Appellant had the right to rant and rave about whatever he decides under the secrecy of his private Facebook page," Richey wrote. "The alleged target of Appellant's rants would never have become aware of such statements if someone trusted did not betray such access authorization."
He noted that he never used Mr. Basinger's name.
"The public must no(t) become liable to prosecution if what they share on Facebook or any other private site is revealed without their consent," Richey wrote.
The Supreme Court's refusal to take the case lets stand a decision by the Lima-based Third District Court of Appeals. The court agreed with the prosecution that past threats made by Richey, including a 2011 message left on an answering machine, established that Mr. Basinger was the target of the new threats.
He had served two years of a three-year sentence for that telephone call threat.
"These (latest) threats were not issued anonymously but broadcasted on an online account that was associated with his name," appellate Judge John Willamowski wrote. "Further, he left recordings of these Facebook Live videos on his online account for some time after he posted them.
"Repeatedly broadcasting these videos online and leaving them posted on his Facebook page increased the likelihood that Basinger would become aware of the threats contained therein," he wrote.
First Published August 3, 2021, 10:26am
