Staff photo / Ed Runyan Brandon Crump is shown in court Wednesday during a pretrial hearing in the Rowan Sweeney case. His charges are in both Mahoning County Common Pleas Court and Mahoning County Juvenile Court. He was 17 at the time Rowan, 4, was killed Sept. 21, 2020. Crump is among three men accused of aggravated murder in the shooting death of Rowan in a home on Perry Street in Struthers.

YOUNGSTOWN — The time needed to evaluate cellphone information appears to be the biggest question mark over when trials can start for men accused in the death of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney.

Attorney Lou DeFabio, who represents defendant Brandon Crump Jr., 20, in the killing of the boy, told Judge Anthony D’Apolito on Wednesday he assumes a June 21 hearing will happen in juvenile court. That is where Judge Theresa Dellick will hear evidence on whether to bind over Crump’s charges to adult court.

The hearing was pushed to June 21 from mid-March because of new evidence being gathered in the case that relates to co-defendant Andre McCoy Jr., 22.

But as Crump’s lawyer, DeFabio has an obligation to obtain and review all available evidence before he represents Crump in that hearing, so he can’t promise that the hearing will happen June 21.

“I would be a bad lawyer, an ineffective lawyer if I just said, ‘Let’s go forward with this hearing without looking at everything,” DeFabio said. “For all I know, there could be mounds of evidence (helpful to the defense) in that phone data.”

DeFabio said: “My assumption is we are going to go forward on June 21, although I certainly can’t gauge how long BCI takes, what information is there. I know Judge Dellick wants it done.”

NINE PHONES

DeFabio was referencing information Assistant Prosecutor Mike Yacovone revealed during Wednesday’s hearing in Crump’s case — that about nine cellphones were recovered when McCoy was arrested in Youngstown in January.

Yacovone said the phones recovered relate to Crump and the people Crump was communicating with over the course of about two years — the time period between when McCoy disappeared after Rowan was killed Sept. 21, 2020, and when Crump was arrested.

Yacovone told D’Apolito that McCoy’s arrest and the seizure of the phones had led to more search warrants being sought, “evidence is being obtained, and because of that attorney DeFabio and myself agreed this may be information we would want.”

DeFabio said the June 21 hearing was pushed back that far to give the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation time to extract the photos, text messages and other information from the phones and provide the attorneys in the case time to review the evidence provided.

But DeFabio noted that his experience tells him that the amount of data that will be provided will be extensive.

“There are gigabytes of data that comes from these phones,” DeFabio said.

Crump originally was going to be set for trial in Rowan’s murder in mid-June, but that is now reset for Oct. 2 because of the June 21 hearing in juvenile court.

As he does at pretrial hearings in the Rowan case, the judge asked again Wednesday if any of the parties are aware of any issues that could delay the start of trials in the Rowan case. The time it takes to evaluate the phones appears to be the biggest question mark.

SHOOTINGS

Prosecutors stated in a recent document in the case that Crump’s DNA was on bullet shell casings found inside the Perry Street home after the shootings of Rowan and wounding of four adults in the home.

Prosecutors have said they hoped to have a better idea whether defendant Kimonie Bryant, 26, or Crump was the shooter in the case once the DNA results were released, which happened a month or two ago. They have not stated specifically yet who they believe the shooter was.

Authorities have said a male entered the home through the front door at 1:52 a.m., apparently to commit a robbery, but the male, who had a hooded sweatshirt pulled up around his face, then shot Rowan and the adults, and “fled on foot out of the home.”

Authorities have said previously that phone-tracking technology indicated that phones associated with Crump and Bryant were close together about the time of the shootings.

Initially witnesses said Bryant was the shooter. But later, some of the witnesses identified the shooter as Crump.

DNA EVIDENCE

DeFabio is moving forward with a request for an expert witness to review the DNA evidence in the case in the event that Dellick does transfer Crump’s charges to the adult-level juvenile court. DeFabio said this is being done to prevent any further delays.

The proposed expert witness is Forensic Bioinformatics Services of the Dayton area. Its role will be to provide expertise in the analysis of DNA evidence. The company would be paid $3,000. The court will need to approve the payment because Crump has been found to be unable to pay.

The judge said he would approve the hiring of the expert, but the company must commit to doing its work within 90 days or DeFabio will need to find another expert.