Summit County prosecutors seek gag order in Ethan Liming case

Summit County prosecutors have asked a judge for gag order in criminal case of three men charged in the death of former Firestone high school student Ethan Liming.

In a filing Friday, prosecutors cited comments made by defense attorneys in stories recently published by the Akron Beacon Journal and aired by Cleveland News 5 that they fear may taint a potential jury pool.

In the stories, attorneys for Deshawn Stafford Jr., 20, and Donovon Jones, 21, said their clients were acting in self defense after Liming and three friends ambushed them with gel pellet guns outside the I Promise School June 2. An attorney for the third man charged in the case, Tyler Stafford, 19, was not quoted, but has said his client, too, was acting in self defense.

Ethan Liming case: 5 things we know about the teen's death and the aftermath

Those assertions flipped the initial police narrative about Liming’s death, which claimed Liming was “brutally” assaulted without mentioning that Liming and his friends triggered the fight that lead to his death. Liming’s three friends, who were part of what happened, have not been charged.

Prosecutors in their filing said that some of the facts defense attorneys used to back up their claims of self defense are “misleading and/or inaccurate.”

They singled out defense attorney Jon Sinn’s comments comparing what happened in Akron to the case of Kyle Rittenhouse. When Rittenhouse was 17, he crossed state lines with a rifle and joined militia member protecting property during anti-racist protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.

Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, ended up fatally shooting two men and injuring a third. He faced homicide and other charges in the shooting, but a jury later acquitted him after he testified that he shot in self defense.

“If you were rooting for Kyle Rittenhouse, you ought to be rooting for Deshawn Stafford as well,”said Sinn, who represents Stafford in the Liming case.

On Monday, Sinn said said he will oppose the gag order.

“It’s interesting that the state had no problem when the chief of police stood in front of cameras and put out a narrative of what happened at the I Promise School that was not based on the truth,” Sinn said. “It’s only when the truth is starting to come out that the government seems to have a problem.”

The community, he said, has a right to know how and why this story changed over time.

All three men were initially held on $1 million bonds, each charged with murder.

Preliminary reports from the Summit County Medical Examiner’s officer showed blood was coming from Liming’s nose, mouth and ears when officials found him in the parking lot. One of his eyes was blackened and someone stomped on him hard enough to leave a shoe print on the right side of his chest wall, the reports said.

An autopsy would later reveal Liming had one broken bone – the occipital that forms the base of the human skull. The spinal cord, which carries nerve signals that help people move or function, passes through the occipital.

About three weeks after they were jailed, a Summit County grand jury considered evidence in the case and opted against murder charges. It instead indicting the two Staffords, who are brothers, and Jones, who is their cousin, on lesser charges that include involuntary manslaughter and assault.

Jones now only faces misdemeanor charges and all three are free on bond pending trial.

Prosecutors have declined to say publicly what evidence emerged between their initial arrests and indictment that turned this from a murder case to one of involuntary manslaughter.

Evidence, they have said, will be revealed at trial.

But that’s not soon enough for Sinn.

“This wasn’t a hate crime and it wasn’t the story of a boy viciously stomped to death, so why were we told it was, and why now do they want to stop the community from knowing the truth?” Sinn asked Monday.

No hearing on the gag order has yet been scheduled Monday morning, according to the online docket in the cases.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Summit County prosecutors seek gag order in Ethan Liming death case