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WARREN -- Trumbull County court officers are seeking the help of federal authorities to bring a former Liberty Township woman -- who is serving a 20-year federal prison term in Alabama -- back to the area to stand trial for a 15-count felony indictment involving the 2018 rape of a 3-year-old Trumbull County girl.
Common Pleas Judge Ronald J. Rice on Thursday set a March 8 jury trial for Candis Wynn, 34, who has been charged with three counts of rape that carry potential life sentences, one count of gross sexual imposition, six counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor, four counts pandering obscenity involving a minor and four counts illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.
Assistant Prosecutor Gabriel Wildman said authorities have been resisting his attempts to have the prisoner transported back to Ohio for court hearings because of the COVID-19 virus.
Rice responded by saying setting the trial date hopefully "will light a fire" for federal officials to do something.
The newspaper unsuccessfully tried to contact Anne Murphy, supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal for the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force, for comment about the marshal's job of transporting federal inmates and, specifically, the Wynn case.
A search of the federal prison website shows that Wynn is incarcerated at a prison in Aliceville, Ala.
CHILD PORN
When questioned about whether the local charges are similar to the federal case, as suggested by Wynn's attorney Jeff Goodman during Thursday's status hearing, Wildman said his case involved the rape of a 3-year-old that was captured on video.
Goodman was appointed by Rice as Wynn's attorney during her video arraignment in April.
Common pleas court records show the indictment of Wynn came March 5 after an investigation conducted by Trumbull County sheriff deputies dating back to Nov. 30, 2018.
Wynn's last local address was given as 1815 Lucretia Drive in Liberty Township.
According to federal documents, Wynn was sentenced to 300 months in federal prison on Sept. 4, 2019, by Judge James S. Gwin on two counts of receipt and distribution of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexual conduct and one count of sexual exploitation of children.
An affidavit prepared by a Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent said that Wynn created child pornography with her cellphone. An investigator with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in January 2019 informed a Trumbull County Sheriff's detective that the task force received a cyber tip from Google concerning the possible making and / or storage of child pornographic materials. The task force received files from Google of suspected pornographic materials including three videos and four digital images coming from Wynn's cellphone account.
Local authorities obtained a search warrant on Jan. 8, 2019, for Wynn's Liberty Township home. A search that day netted three electronic devices, with data showing that Wynn had sent sexually explicit images and videos to a 34-year-old man. One of the videos was 42 seconds in length depicting a female minor being penetrated by an adult male.
A search later in the month of a Market Street, Youngstown, address netted a computer tablet and two cellphones along with a SIM card, the affidavit states.