Crime

A 20-year-old Ravenna man was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon and receiving stolen property at the No Kings rally on Oct. 18 in Kent after a scuffle broke out over the Trump flag he was carrying, police said.

Unless a settlement can be reached, a federal lawsuit pitting a Palmyra man against the Portage County sheriff and two sheriff’s office deputies may be headed for jury trial.

A quiet Kent neighborhood was disrupted the night of May 28 when a SWAT team surrounded a home on Franklin Avenue, fired “numerous chemical munitions into the home” and arrested a man wanted on multiple warrants, police said. Kent police had attempted to arrest 30-year-old Jacob Scott Tharp at his home at 646 Franklin Ave. But the situation escalated into a standoff after officers reported hearing what sounded like a shotgun being racked inside the house, according to a police […]

A Kent man remains free on bond while he awaits sentencing for soliciting a minor to engage in sexual activity. Legally termed importuning, it is a third-degree felony. The alleged victim is a 12-year-old boy who attended a Kent parochial school.

A Ravenna man has been convicted by a federal jury of orchestrating a financial conspiracy that defrauded the U.S. government of over $1 million in pandemic benefits.

The Portage County Recorder’s website provides a free link to notify property owners when mortgage or deed activity affecting their property has taken place. Though such notifications may alert them to fraudulent activity, Portage County Recorder Lori Calcei said few people have taken advantage of it.

Streetsboro police are investigating the illegal detonation of explosive devices on four separate nights at Trail Lake Park in Streetsboro.

A criminal charge against a Mantua police officer has been dropped, with the prosecution saying one of its essential witnesses is unavailable due to medical reasons.

The Portage County Sheriff’s Office has filed charges against a Village of Mantua police officer, alleging she endangered her 5-year-old son by leaving him alone with a man previously convicted of sexual battery.

Portage County residents who run afoul of the law due to substance use or mental health issues have an alternative to prison, thanks to a trio of special courts established in recent years.

In 1996, Tyrone Noling was sentenced to death for aggravated murder in the 1990 double homicide of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig at their Moff Road home in Atwater. Fully 27 years later, a new development may — or may not — produce documents to support Noling’s request for a new trial.

Two people are in jail after Ravenna police executed a search warrant at an apartment on the 600 block of West Main Street.

The head of a local nonprofit animal rescue is facing what could be multiple charges of animal cruelty after agents found 146 dead dogs at her home in Mantua Township.

Anyone calling 911 from eight communities around Portage County will now be able to provide Ravenna police dispatchers with real-time information, thanks to a web-based app.

A deputy in the Portage County Sheriff’s Office was indicted on two counts of rape by a Cuyahoga County grand jury for an incident that took place Oct. 19 in Lyndhurst.

At least three more students at Streetsboro have been targeted with sextortion in recent months, following the harassment and subsequent Nov. 19 death by suicide of 17-year-old James Woods, city and school officials said last week.

Cell phones are rapidly becoming as dangerous on the roads as drugs and alcohol, according to the latest annual report from the Portage County Fatal Crash Review Board.

Mantua Village Council Member Scott Weaver has been charged with menacing, a fourth-degree misdemeanor, after a verbal exchange with a village resident during a Nov. 7 council workshop.