You want to be an American idiot?
Do you know how hard is to say? This is one of the most bizarre stories we've ever seen in Cincinnati. You know how hard that is in the city of ours. Welcome to its Scott Sloan back on seven hundred w W, the man beaten down twenty had beaten twenty eight times last summer, who is also facing criminal charges, is supposed to have his day in court today. That would be Alex Tchravinsky, his trial charged with this early conduct after
what happened in July back on fourth and ALM. It's been delayed and delayed and delayed again and after a last minute continuance, but today allegedly is the day. Today is the day he will be in court. And on that his attorney, Steve Gooden on the show on seven hundred WLW Steve, welcome, How are you no?
Good morning? Fantastic?
This is gonna happen today. I just feel like something is They're gonna go. Well, we need more time, right because last time in this really odd case, the prosecution's key witness ail to appear. He said he or she said, there's fear for safety there after misinformation Len and believe he'd be identified as an FBI informant, and they got a continuance on that, and I judge said, okay, this
is the last one. But how does misinformation the prosecution failed to manage become grounds to delay a defendant who was ready for trial.
Yeah, you know, look, this is probably the most litigated misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge in American history, so nothing would surprise me. But I do know you know this judge a bit, and I think he's going to put his foot down today and make the trial go forward. Also, I would note it is a very rare instance in which is going to be a jury trial for misdemeanor disorderly conduct. It's kind of a rare instance where that's
even allowed. So I presumably the jury commissioner has brought in perspective jurors, and I think that is typically a factor for a judge when he grants a continuance, if the jurors are really ready to go, doesn't want to inconvenience them. So I would bet that today is finally the day for the most litigated, disportless kind of strategy perhaps in the history of the Republic.
We've had a lot of We've had a lot of bizarre cases come through Cincinnat there's always some if something bizarre is going on, there's always a tie to Cincinnati, and often we have crazy stuff happening here. But this is uh, this has got to be in the top of that list, all right, So final continuance. But do we even know where are they going to produce this, this mystery witness and what happens the case if they don't, well, if.
They don't, I mean, they presumably have other witnesses. So I mean it's just really kind of a sad commentary on the state of the city. Then of course, if you have a street brawl in Cincinnati, there may be may or may not be an FBI. And for him at just standing around in the crowd, uh, you know, whether he was an abortment or not. I think I think they concluded he was not, but but some thought he was, So I mean, you know even that that adds another level of uh bizarreness and uh, you know,
complexity to the whole thing. But presumably they have other witnesses. I mean, what they've got to show here is kind of weird. So disorderly conduct in this case is defined and I quote, by engaging in fighting or threatening harm, by making unreasonable noises or using offensively coarse language or gestures. And in order to get the more serious form of it that actually carries jail time, I mean, typically it's just a payout ticket.
You have to show that there was persistent.
Conduct, you know, that way. So that's what they've got a show. So they're going to need to put on quite a few witnesses, and I'm assuming they're going to try to authenticate and play this video. I guess there's video from multiple different angles, security cameras, self owned stuff, social media, things of that nature. So you know, certainly they're going to be able to at least put on
a basic case with the video alone. Now that said, his lawyers said he's going to argue self defense, you know, because he says he has been he was struck at least twenty eight times and allegedly had some cognitive issues right afterwards. And I guess he did give some statements to the police, but he's going to argue I think that those statements were affected by being hit in the
head repeatedly. And also I'm assuming his lawyer is going to go here if I were his lawyer, I'd be going very heavily into the decision to charge mister Travinsky because he is listed as a victim and witness in multiple felony cases from the other individuals who struck he and this lady known as Holly, who was knocked unconscious and beaten very badly. So he is both a victim and now a very and a witness and now a defendant. And he's only charged many, many many months later.
After there have.
Been press conferences and so forth, and froth plague game in lyunch and some leaders in the black community who thought that he needed to be charged based upon seeing the videos. So there is some stink on the case from that point of view as to whether or not he was escapegoated. So I think you've got a lot for this jury to consider. I feel sorry for this
jury because they probably got him paneled. They're dead at the courthouse thinking, my god, we may have a homicide trial or some serious case involving a you know, a large lawsuit. This is going to be fascinating, and instead they're going to be dissecting a street brawl from different different angles for three or four days.
So God bless them.
Ye've been there. The two detectives who spent literally one hundreds of hours on game, they wouldn't sign the charges against Alex Stravinsky. They were threatened, I guess with the motion, and the captain, who, by the way, is now the interim police chief, Adam Henny, signed it to protect his office. What's that tell you about the strength of the case when the investigators won't put their names on.
Well, you know, it's I mean, I think it's pretty obvious it's not the best case in the world. I mean that being said, you know, it is a jury trial, so you know, anything can happen in a jury trial. As we always say, it's not like you know, jurors can have a different view of what the community standard should be for a case like this, So you just
you never know. And there is a question as to how much the judge is going to let the attorneys get into that kind of background about how it was charged, and how much the jurors are going to know. Folks like you and I are pretty plugged into this. The average citizen in Hamilton County may not recall that level of detail. And if the judge rules that are truly not relevant to whether or not the crime was committed. He may keep some of that information from the jurors,
so we don't know what they will actually know. But if they hear that, it's going to really hurt the case. And surely they're going to be allowed to know that he was assaulted, that he got the worst of.
This and it's bad. Now.
Now, if I'm Alex Jrminsky's lawyer, the biggest thing I would worry about is this. It's what I would call the Victoria Parks factor. I mean, she did say she was a former city council member who famously said that the.
Quote deserve to get be down.
There are people who may look at this and think, you know, nobody here covered themselves and glory.
They were all out.
Drinking at two three in the morning in the middle of this thing, and there are there was a school thought that hey, you know, he was down there mixed up in this in one way or another, and you know, and a pox on all their houses and everyone's guilty of something. I mean, there are people who would look at it that way. So you know, again we're well afield of the law. It's really hard to apply the law and these kind of misdemeanor decisions because are kinds
of cases because you know, engaging and fighting. I mean, it's you know, it's the language is both. It seems very specific, but actually when you think about it, it's very vague. It's the kind of thing that goes on in these brawls all the time. Jury is going to have a changefull well.
I think also it shows you that the echo chamber is louder than the law in that this is exactly like the Nicholas Sandman thing from twenty nineteen where this young man from a cubcath is in DC on a high school trip, confronts Nathan Phillips, the Native American man who was protesting, and the initial reports were the he had and this would be Nick Sandman, the student had attacked and verbally attacked or looked down upon this Native American man, and it turns out the opposite was true.
That he didn't walk up to him. The Native American elder man walked up to him and he just had like a staring contest, I guess, and was smiling at him. But all those people who attacked Nick Sandman then didn't retract what they said and said, hey, you know, at first Blush it looked like he was the aggressor, and it turns out the other man was the aggressor. No
one ever apologizes for these things. Same thing here is that it looked like, initially from the citizen video from the street videos, that it was Alex Stravinsky as the guy who committed the assault, when it turns out he was assaulted twenty eight times prior, including Holly. And the end result is, well, you know, we had all these people step up and say, hey, listen, you charge everybody
else weren't charging the white guy. And of course when the truth came out from the state a different story, no one apologized, and we've delayed this trial now forever. And I think that's part of it as well, because history makes your memory a little bit foggy, right, So all those things aside this charge here that ale Stravinsky was the aggressor, it turns out he was attacked. That's
even backed up by the state. The state's on timeline shows that how does that charge survive the self defense argument?
Well, you know it likely won't.
I mean, I you know, my prediction is that the most I think most people are going to go look at this and think, look this, I didn't deserve to be just assaulted the way he was, didn't deserve to have his life turned upside down with these criminal charges. I do predict that they'll find them not guilty. I mean, you know, the the only issue that I think they're going they're gonna pound on here is as the videos I have seen.
Can I caution people all the time that.
These videos we see on Facebook and Twitter, you know, are often you know, selectively posted, edited and and and often don't have the full context of what happened. But there is this issue of what they call, in quote end quote, the slap. It does look as though that after he was assaulted and walked away from the situation, that he did re engage with one individual and.
Slap that individual.
Now, whether that admits to some sort of quote persistent fighting, I don't know. Prosecutors that I know very well, as well as some of the police officers who looked at it, said look, you know, it's not a serious it's nothing,
you know, in the context of what happened. So I know a lot of very smart and experienced people looked at that particular part of the video and found it to be not something that would rise to the level of criminal conduct, particularly in the case of a guy who was the victim of a serious assault, and a
felony level assault at that by a large crowd. So but that I think you're going to hear a lot of talk about this slap and where he looked as though there was a brief moment where he was at least in the clear and away from these individuals and then sort of re engaged. I think that's ultimately what they're going to have to hang their hat on for
the prosecution. It's not much, and I do think most people are going to look at this fairly and say, you know, there's nothing here, and that said, you know, there may be other you know, the live witnesses are going to provide different contexts. We don't know what he was said between these individuals. There have been all kinds of allegations and hints that racial slurs were being thrown around. We don't know that for a fact. That may change
kind of how some folks look at this. I mean, there are there's an argument that that is exceptionally disorderly. We do have this kind of concept of fighting words in Ohio, but also It's very interesting. I do think because of our new stand your ground laws. You know, a lot of folks talk about those in the gun contexts, but they also sort of apply here. He doesn't really
have a duty to retreat anymore. There used to be this argument in Ohio law for self defense that if you were under attack, you know, you did have some sort of duty to retreat. You really don't have that anymore. So I do think on balance, you know, he will likely be found not guilty, but you know, again who knows, and there may be evidence that we're not.
Yeah, well, I mean if he sound that guilty, it just gives more credence. So that the people who got this wrong from the initial had a big press conference about it. We'll just say, well, it goes to show you how racially biased the court system is, despite of course, this case being heard by a jury of their peers who will probably see the evidence. Ago Travinsky was the victim here and not the assailant. He was struck twenty eight times in the head and face concussion syndrome PTSD.
He owned a being in that fight and throwing the punch. He's a victim in this case as well as a defendant. How hard is that for the prosecutor to not violate his constitutional rights. That's a pretty it seems to me to be a pretty narrow window to negotiate this.
Well.
Yeah, I mean, frankly, if the city loses this case. And I think that's one of the things that's important to note here that there are two different prosecutor's offices inning able to count because they handle the county prosecutor's office that handles all felonies and some misdemeanors and surrounding areas. The city still has its own small prosecutor's office that only handles misdemeanors within the city limits, and they're the
ones bringing this case. But the other prosecutor's office, Hamilicuty prosecutor's office, are prosecuting all the other folks involved in this fight because they're charged with felonies. So there is some some real tension there. It's like, you know, the city is prosecuting one of the key witnesses in the counties cases.
So that's a that's a problem number one.
Number two, I would predict that if he is acquitted by this jury, that he probably already has counsel lined up to look at a potential malicious malicious prosecution lawsuit into or a civil rights claim.
Uh, you know, basically saying, look.
I was prosecuted for political reasons. I really didn't have a good faith basis to bring this and the city may be in a position to pay out yet another multi let about settlement as will impact it's it's a budget even Fritter, So is that stated?
Is that the next is that after this gets I don't know if I'll get dismissed, but after this thing wraps up, and I think the prediction is pretty good that Alex Stravinsky's going to walk, and let's say that he does. He then turns around to a malicious prosecution case as a civil case against the city and civil
claim outside of settlement. Though that's pretty ugly. Does that implicate the mayor to some degree or at least the administration, because typically the mayor will isolate himself and insult himself rather with the people like sure along and other underlings
that'll take the bullet for him, so to speak. But does that turn around to be problematic from a civil rights violation for the mayor of the City of Cincinnati, going, Hey, if it's proven that we were able to influence the arrest and prosecution of Alex Stravinsky, then of course that's a civil rights violation there. That's a pretty serious charge against officers of the City of Cincinnati, the mayor notwithstanding.
Well, I mean, you're absolutely right.
I'm going to try to walk a fine line here because I'm trying to be your legal analyst and not a standing critic of the mayor, which i am. This is the part where it gets really fun. If there's a malicious prosecution claim and it survives the early stages, they will have the ability to subpoene the documents and take demand documents, pull documents out of the city, and
they'll have the ability to take depositions. And if, as one presumes, the city manager and or the mayor were involved in any way shape or forming the decision to charge Alex Tremensky, that's going to come out and that is inappropriate, I mean by any standard. I mean, they're not supposed to be under our charter form of government. You know, the police officers are supposed to be able
to work independently and without political pressure. And if he can show that political pressure, that is a real problem. Not just in terms of civil liability and monetary damages. That's a real problem politically, and it's a real sign of just how things may have very well, really broken down by this. And you know, it sometimes can be a very minor thing like a misdemeanor, this misdemeanor charge.
You know, there are over I think.
Ten to fifteen thousand misdemeanors filed every year, you know, in Hamilton County. But one of these, this little thing, this little time charge, it typically doesn't carry jail time, could have huge ramifications down the road if it leads to a lawsuit that Chols there was political involvement in this decision to charge him, which common sense seems to indicate had to be the fact case, because it's very rare for a case like this to be charged many months after the fact.
He is attorney Steve Gooden and a former consulman. Thanks for jumping on the show this morning. I think the short rate here is it probably should this should end rather quickly. But then it gets really interesting if Alex Schravinsky is axonerator will find out what happens. But the trial is set for today. Get some popcorn, baby, Steve, all the best.
Thanks again, take care shot. Thanks all right.
News update here seconds away on the Big One seven hundred WLW. I'll get the very latest then we'll return here on the show, we jump right in here. This is interesting. There's a case now that is coming out against Sephora and Benefit. They're cosmetic companies, and that they are deliberately to This is on the heels of the metaverdict, by the way, targeting children under the age of ten to get them to buy makeup. Kids under ten are now girls under ten are now using makeup makeup and
the courts are trying to shut this down. We'll get into that next on the show seven hundred WLW.