City man re-sentenced for making threats

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

A Van Wert man who threatened a judge, two attorneys and two probation officers, among other things, was given community control during a resentencing hearing held Thursday afternoon in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court.

Robert J. Hartman, 22, appeared for resentencing after winning an appeal filed with the Ohio Third District Court of Appeals related to his original sentencing by visiting Judge David Faulkner. The appellate court found that Judge Faulkner’s sentence did not meeting state sentencing guidelines calling for separation between prison and community control sentences.

Judge Faulkner had sought to have Hartman serve approximately two years of a 20-year prison term handed down August 23, 2011, and then be placed on community control, but appellate judges said the first sentence was for both prison and community control, in contravention of state sentencing regulations.

During his resentencing, Hartman was again given four five-year prison terms, to be served consecutively to one another, but Judge Faulkner then suspended the sentences and placed the Van Wert man on community control, to include up to six months in the Western Ohio Regional Treatment and Habilitation (WORTH) Center in Lima, a drug treatment facility run by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

The judge ordered Hartman held in the Van Wert County Correctional Facility until he can be transported to the WORTH Center.

Hartman had originally threatened to kill Judge Charles D. Steele, Prosecutor Charles F. Kennedy III, his own attorney, Kelly Rauch, and probation officers Stacy Widmer and Frank Bowen and also to blow up the Van Wert County Courthouse.

Hartman made the threats to another inmate after he was sentenced on another case in 2009.

Because Judge Steele and Kennedy were among those threatened, they recused themselves from this case and Judge Faulkner and a special prosecutor, Peter R. Seibel, were appointed.