Top stories, No. 9: Jason Tupps found guilty of rape; will spend at least 5 years in prison
We're counting down Crawford County's Top 10 stories of 2022. Today, our No. 9 entry: The conviction of Jason Tupps on a first-degree felony charge of rape.
Tupps will spend up to 7½ years in prison after being convicted in August.
Tupps, 47, of Crestline, also has been designated a Tier 3 sex offender, which means he must register with the county sheriff and verify his home address, work address and vehicle information every 90 days for the rest of his life.
The former corrections officer with the Crawford County Sheriff's Office was convicted on Aug. 24 on a first-degree felony charge of rape, according to Crawford County Common Pleas Court records. The jury found him not guilty of a first-degree misdemeanor count of domestic violence.
In late October, he was sentenced to 5 to 7½ years behind bars, according to Steve Irwin, a spokesperson for the Ohio Attorney General's office. It will be up to the adult parole authority to decide if Tupps is eligible for early release. Either way, he will have a mandatory community control period of five years beginning on the date of his release.
The prosecution alleged Tupps, a former corrections officer at the Crawford County Sheriff's Office, raped a woman at a home in Crestline on Aug. 28, 2021. The incident was recorded on the victim's cell phone.
The case was heard by Howard Hall, a retired Morrow County Common Pleas judge appointed by the state Supreme Court, and prosecuted by Anthony Cillo and Drew Wood of the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
The prosecution's case centered on the victim's audio recording of the rape, which was played for jurors.
In his opening statement, Wood told jurors Tupps and his accuser argued frequently — so frequently she had begun recording the arguments on her cell phone.
"She did this for two reasons," Wood said. "First, the defendant would sometimes tell her that he'd had too much to drink the night before and didn't remember those things he had said. The second reason is that she was worried something bad would happen."
Something bad did happen, he told jurors: She was raped.
"This case is about basic human rights, ladies and gentlemen," Wood said. "The right to decide what goes inside your body. The right to say no, you are not going to put that inside me."
It was the second time Tupps, a former corrections officer at the Crawford County Jail, had been on trial in the last two years. In August 2020, a jury found him innocent of six charges, but guilty of first-degree misdemeanor falsification, in connection with a July 2018 incident in which he was accused of pulling over a driver while off duty and holding her at gunpoint. He was sentenced to 120 days behind bars with all but 45 suspended.
Tupps resigned from the sheriff's office in August 2018.
This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Year's top stories, No. 9: Jason Tupps found guilty of rape, sentenced
