2/14/19 – 5:21 A.M.
An Akron-area lawyer wants to reopen a now two-decade-old criminal case against a Rawson man. Attorney Adam VanHo is representing Nathan Graham in the action. Graham is serving a lengthy prison sentence for his conviction in the kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder of a Findlay teenager in 1999.
VanHo says he is basing his review on recently discovered evidence that “may form the basis for a claim of actual innocence.” Motions filed in the Hancock County Common Pleas Court do not say what the new evidence is. VanHo wants to review trial transcripts and evidence in the case.
Authorities charged Graham following an incident on February 13 of 1999. Prosecutors said others charged in the case beat a 13-year-old girl when she flirted with men at a party at a Tiffin Avenue apartment. They then took her to Graham’s house near Rawson where they raped her and eventually put her in a drainage tile and covered it with rocks.
Graham and his girlfriend came back and removed her. Prosecutors considered Graham the ringleader.