LEBANON — The former Morrow cop who stole $4,600 from slain Warren County sheriff’s Sgt. Brian Dulle’s widow and children pleaded guilty Wednesday in court.
Prior to appearing before Judge James Flannery, Ryan Hunt sat in the courtroom with his chin resting in his palm, staring straight ahead as the room filled up with law enforcement personnel. Hunt pleaded guilty to one count of theft and attempted tampering with evidence and no contest to a second theft count and attempted tampering with records.
Hunt hosted a memorial golf outing for Dulle in July 2011, with proceeds to benefit the officer’s grieving widow and children. But Warren County Sheriff Larry Sims became suspicious when none of the money from the golf event was ever deposited into the account set up for Abbie Dulle and her children.
Dulle was killed in 2011 when he was hit while deploying stop sticks to try and halt a stolen car driven by Marcus Isreal, who is now serving 25 years to life in prison.
Delaware County Prosecutor Carol O’Brien is serving as the special prosecutor in the case because Prosecutor David Fornshell once worked with Hunt’s father — who is a former federal prosecutor — at Dinsmore & Shohl.
O’Brien carefully unraveled the case for the judge, telling him that Hunt squirreled the money away in his basement rather than deposit it in a bank account and then paid some bills with it.
Eventually he did deposit $12,000 into the Dulle fund, with money he collected from another victim in the case. As part of the golf outing investigation, sheriff’s detectives discovered Hunt swindled Southland Marketing and Development, Inc. out of Knoxville, Tenn., out of between $30,000 and $48,000.
O’Brien said Hunt got a printing job from the company to produce 925,000 fliers, advertising an auction. He printed all of the fliers but only mailed 681,444. She said the big cost is for mailing, and because the company paid him up front, they are out the money for fliers that weren’t mailed. To make matters worse, she said, he mailed the fliers after the event took place and then doctored a document that confirmed the mailing.
Hunt’s attorney John Smith was critical of O’Brien’s recitation of the facts of the case after Flannery asked him if he had anything to say.
“My colleague has made what should be a simple answer to your question difficult by giving an opening statement, a final argument, issues that may be argued at the sentencing about the facts,” he said. “What I understand from this court is the purpose of the statement is to see if there are sufficient facts to support the charges made … There are facts sufficient to support the charges to which my client has plead guilty. I will not affirm all the opinions, the circumstantial interpretations of the evidence of everybody and the hearsay.”
Flannery could sentence Hunt to prison March 15, but as part of the guilty plea, O’Brien agreed to recommend no prison time and the sheriff’s office has agreed not to conduct any more investigations into the Dulle or Southland matters.
After the hearing, O’Brien said she doesn’t believe Hunt set out to harm Dulle’s family.
“Honestly, I don’t think he meant to take the money when he started the golf outing,” she said. “I think it just was a circumstance at that moment he needed the money, and there was money sitting there and no one was asking about it.”
Sims said the fact Hunt is a former police officer makes his acts all the more egregious.
“It is a betrayal. It’s hurtful to a lot of people,” he said. “It should be hurtful to the community. Law enforcement takes a lot of pride in what we do and this has an additional important component in that he was their friend. He betrayed a profession, but he really betrayed a family that suffered a tragic loss.”
Neither Hunt nor his attorney commented after the hearing. Dulle’s widow also chose not to comment.
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