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YOUNGSTOWN -- An East Cleveland man appeared in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Friday under heavy security to be arraigned on a superseding indictment, listing 12 felony charges connected to the sexual assault of a woman deputy at the Mahoning County jail.
Rondell Harris, 33, through his court-appointed attorney, pleaded not guilty to charges including two counts of rape, three counts of kidnapping, three counts of tampering with evidence, two counts of disrupting public services, one count of felonious assault and one count of simple assault.
If convicted, Harris could be sentenced to well above 50 years in prison.
A grand jury on June 30 returned additional charges against Harris, who was brought into the courtroom from his cell in the Ohio State Penitentiary.
Two lawyers from the Ohio Attorney General's Office -- Laura Ann Dezort and William Walton -- are prosecuting the case. Gregory W. Meyers is the public defender representing Harris.
Meyers said his client has no problem waiving his right to a speedy trial, and Judge Anthony D'Apolito canceled a scheduled July 25 trial in the case. A new pretrial hearing has been set for Aug. 31.
The additional charges are related to unspecified incidents that occurred in Mahoning County through Jan. 28. At a hearing last month, Harris told the judge those charges stemmed from his time at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown. He was serving a one-year prison sentence for carrying a concealed weapon out of Portage County Common Pleas Court, according to prison records.
After the alleged assaults on the county deputy, Harris was moved from the Mahoning County jail to the Trumbull County jail. Reports stated Harris ran into problems at that facility and retaliated, and that is when he was moved back to the Ohio State Penitentiary.