Staff photo / Dan Pompili Matthew Nicholson of Columbiana, left, sits with his attorney, John Shultz, in the courtroom of Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney on Thursday. Sweeney denied the request of prosecutors to revoke Nicholson’s $250,000 bond for a violation of the terms. Nicholson is charged with three counts of rape, one count of sexual battery, and one county of aggravated drug possession. He is scheduled to go on trial in November.

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney on Thursday denied a request by the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office to revoke the bond of a man charged with rape.

Matthew Nicholson, 46, of Columbiana, is charged with three counts of rape, one count of sexual battery and one count of aggravated drug possession, all felonies, and one misdemeanor count of receiving stolen property. He is scheduled to go on trial in November.

Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Daniel Yozwiak requested that Sweeney revoke Nicholson’s $250,000 bond, which he posted in February, because Nicholson allegedly contacted one of the victims, a violation of the terms of his bond.

Yozwiak said Nicholson attempted to contact the woman by video call through Facebook Messenger on May 29. The woman told the court the call came in while she was still in the courthouse, speaking with someone from the Prosecutor’s Office, after a pretrial hearing in the case. However, when questioned on Thursday by Nicholson’s attorney, John Shultz, she could not state exactly which attorney she was speaking to that day.

Three days later, on June 2, she sent a text message through Facebook Messenger asking Nicholson why he tried to call her. He did not respond.

Before the woman took the witness stand, Shultz told Sweeney that he had filed an affidavit stating that the video call was an honest mistake.

He said that after the pretrial hearing that day, they stood on the courthouse steps and Shultz asked Nicholson to show him some of the messages he said the woman had sent him. He said the video call, which came through at about 11:30 a.m., must have been accidentally initiated while Nicholson was using the app in the context of that conversation. Schultz said the accident occurred within minutes of the conclusion of the pretrial hearing.

“I assure this court that I would never jeopardize my professional standing and license and execute such an affidavit if I did not believe the facts that are cited therein,” Shultz said. “There was no conversation, or anything. It was totally an unintentional accident caused by technology.”

After Shultz spoke, Sweeney allowed Yozwiak to call the woman to the stand. Her testimony supported Shultz’s claim that there was no conversation between her and Nicholson.

She told the court that she recognized the account as Nicholson’s because of previous exchanges they had had on the app.

She told the court that she immediately told the lawyers she was speaking with that she had a missed video call from Nicholson and that they took the matter from there.

Asked why she contacted him by Messenger on June 2, at 3:42 p.m., the woman said “he just keeps continuing it,” meaning she believes Nicholson is causing the case to drag on.

Her testimony supported statements by both attorneys that Nicholson had not contacted her before that incident, since before his arrest, and has not attempted to contact her in any fashion since May 29.

Nicholson was indicted on Jan. 16, arrested after a chase in Beaver Township the next day, and

Sweeney set his bond at $500,000 on Jan. 22. On Feb. 7, the judge reduced it to $250,000. Four days later, it was posted, and he has been free since.