Butler County Sheriff's Office

[Public Info Officer]

For Immediate Release…. November 21, 2006

During proceedings in Hamilton Municipal Court earlier today, Public Indecency charges filed by the Sheriff’s Office against Scott Blauvelt, former Hamilton Municipal Court Prosecutor, were dismissed due to an apparent oversight in the wording of the formal complaint. Language in the statute was changed in late 2005 to include some additional wording indicating the act must happen within proximity of a non-family member. A computer program used in filing the official, formal complaint had not been updated to include this new, added wording, so the charge was dismissed.

Sheriff’s Officials will be meeting with representatives of the Court to identify a means of manually re-drafting the complaint into an acceptable format. The Sheriff’s Office does plan to pursue re-filing the charge. It is the Sheriff’s Office belief that today’s ruling does not erase the fact that a criminal offense occurred. Chief Deputy Dwyer will be available for additional comment until late afternoon today.

Prepared by: Sgt. Monte Mayer
Public Information Officer