Ohio Suprme Court rejects Eva Christian appeal

June 24--The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected an effort by imprisoned ex-restaurant owner Eva Christian to have her most serious conviction overturned.

In a decision announced by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor and filed with the Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals last week, the state's highest court declined to accept jurisdiction in the case, rejecting the arguments of Christian's attorney, Brock Schoenlein, that Christian's most serious felony conviction should be thrown out.

The decision appears to pave that way for Christian's re-sentencing before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Barbara Gorman, which had been put on hold by the Ohio Supreme Court appeal. A spokeswoman for Gorman's office said Friday the re-sentencing date has not been set.

Christian, the former owner of Cafe Boulevard/Boulevard Haus in Dayton's Oregon District, and Cena Brazilian Steakhouse in Miami Twp., has served four years of a nine-year prison sentence for convictions on five counts of charges related to insurance fraud.

The appeals process has taken several twists since a jury convicted Christian in June 2012. The Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals earlier this year reinstated the conviction against Christian for "engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity," the most serious charge against her. But the court also reduced the severity of that charge from a first-degree felony to a second-degree felony.

The restaurant owner was convicted on four other lesser counts related to insurance fraud.

Dayton attorney Schoenlein had urged the appeals court, and also the Ohio Supreme Court, to throw out the corruption count entirely -- which potentially could have cut Christian's sentence in half. He had urged the state's highest court to review whether the corrupt-activity count was appropriate in Christian's case. The court decided not to intervene.

Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. has said his office will request that Christian's original nine-year sentence be re-imposed at the upcoming re-sentencing.

"Although a change in the law resulted in a reduction in the severity of the (corruption) conviction from a felony of the first degree to a felony of the second degree, the serious nature of her criminal actions and the danger she poses to the community has not changed," Heck said in a statement in February.

"Accordingly, nine years, as originally ordered by the trial judge, remains an appropriate sentence for her crimes and will result in her serving the same amount of time in the penitentiary."

Christian owned and operated Boulevard Haus (formerly Cafe Boulevard) for 15 years. The criminal case revolved around break-ins and a 2009 fire that Christian reported and which prosecutors said were staged in order to collect insurance money: one break-in at her Washington Twp. home and a reported vandalism and fire at what was then her second restaurant, Cena Brazilian Steakhouse.

Prosecutors have said Christian faces possible deportation when she is released.

Christian testified at her 2012 trial and denied wrongdoing. She told Judge Gorman prior to sentencing that she "cannot confess to a crime I have not committed."

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