The Ninth Judicial District of the Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions of Nicholas J. Valentino on six counts of telecommunications harassment after he repeatedly called and left voicemails for his father, despite explicit instructions to stop communicating.
The opinion by Judge Carr upheld the judgment of the Medina County Court of Common Pleas in the case of State v. Valentino. Valentino, who was incarcerated at the time of the harassment, had argued that the evidence was insufficient and that the conviction was against the manifest weight of the evidence.
The case centered on Valentino’s ongoing communication with his father, which he described as “hostile, angry, upset” and “very, very disrespectful[,] and hurtful.”
In October 2023, after Valentino texted his father, calling him a “traitor” and saying he was “going to burn old man,” The man texted back, stating, “From henceforth, stop all forms of communication with me.”
Despite the clear instruction, Valentino continued to call his father. In February 2024, the father contacted the Medina County Prosecutor’s Office to have his son told to stop contacting him.
On February 16, 2024, Deputy Steven Clark of the Medina County Sheriff’s Office went to the jail pod where Valentino was housed and delivered the message from the prosecutor’s office: Valentino was not allowed to call his father again. Deputy Clark told him his father “doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Just ten minutes later, Deputy Clark received information that Valentino was again calling his father. Valentino went on to leave a total of seven voicemails between February 16 and 19, 2024.
Valentino was indicted on six counts of telecommunications harassment for the calls made between February 16 and 18, 2024, as well as one count for the February 19 call. The jury found him guilty on the six counts but was unable to reach a verdict on the seventh, which was later dismissed. Valentino was sentenced to a 12-month term of incarceration on each count, to be served concurrently with each other but consecutively to an existing sentence for menacing by stalking.
In his appeal, Valentino argued that the evidence was insufficient, claiming he hadn’t received the October 2023 text and that the instruction from Deputy Clark—who was not his father or a person at his father’s premises—did not satisfy the statutory requirement for the crime.
The Court of Appeals rejected this argument, noting that the statute, R.C. 2917.21(A)(5), prohibits a person from knowingly making a telecommunication if the recipient “previously has told the caller not to make a telecommunication.” The court found that:
- The State presented evidence of the October 2023 text message from his father telling Valentino to stop all communication.
- Valentino admitted at trial to making the calls and leaving the voicemails in February 2024.
- The instruction from Deputy Clark further supported the finding that Valentino was aware he was not supposed to communicate with his father and that his father did not wish to speak to him.
“Viewing the evidence and all reasonable inferences in favor of the State, as we must, we conclude the evidence is sufficient to establish Valentino knowingly called his father and left him six voicemails after being told by his father via text to not communicate with him,” the opinion stated.
Manifest Weight of the Evidence
Valentino also contested the manifest weight of the evidence, largely based on his denial of receiving the October 2023 text. The Appeals Court found no merit in this, pointing out that the jury heard conflicting testimony from both Valentino and his father and was responsible for determining witness credibility.
“A verdict is not against the manifest weight of the evidence simply ‘because the finder of fact chose to believe the State’s witnesses rather than the defendant’s version of the events,'” the court wrote, concluding that this was not an “exceptional case where the jury lost its way.”
The Court of Appeals ultimately overruled both of Valentino’s assignments of error and affirmed the judgment of the trial court.
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