Staff report
Apparently Charlie White won’t need to wear an ankle bracelet in the immediate future.
On Jan. 3 Hamilton County Superior Court 2 Judge Daniel Pfleging granted a stay of White’s previous sentence pending a possible appeal.
But the details of the appeal are not yet available.
“Mr. White’s notice of appeal has already been filed, and we are awaiting the transcripts from the hearings,” said White’s attorney, Andrea Ciobanu, in a statement. “As soon as we receive the transcripts, we will be able to finalize our brief and file with the appellate court.”
White had been sentenced to one year of electronic monitored home detention by Hamilton County Superior Court Judge Steve Nation on Feb. 23, 2012. White was convicted of six felony charges including voter fraud for casting a ballot in a district in which he no longer lived during the May 2010 primary.
Nation sentenced White one year for each of six convictions, which will be served concurrently. He also was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and must serve 30 hours of community service.
But White had argued in 2013 that the conviction was unjustified based on an inadequate defense during the trial. He then hired Ciobanu and filed a petition for post-conviction relief – a type of legal hearing that challenges the validity of the original conviction.
In the post-conviction relief petition, White’s lawyer claimed that during his original trial former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi failed to present a defense and was ignorant of the law among multiple other grievances.
A Dec. 23 order from Judge Pfleging found these claims to be unsubstantiated.
White is a former chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party.
