News Briefs
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Newbury Man Facing Child Pornography Charges
A Newbury Township man is facing multiple child pornography-related charges for his alleged conduct on Feb. 27.
A Geauga County grand jury has indicted Donald A. Sinkovec, 47, on one count of fourth-degree felony pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor; one count of fourth-degree felony pandering of obscenity involving a minor; five counts of fifth-degree felony illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material; and one count of fifth-degree possession of criminal tools.
Prosecutors also are asking that Sinkovec be required to forfeit an iPad used in the commission of the alleged offenses, according to the indictment filed May 1.
He is scheduled to be arraigned in Geauga County Common Pleas Court on May 26.
Ex-Convict Charged with Violating Protection Order
A Geauga County grand jury has indicted a transgender woman who spent four years in prison for causing the death of her frail 73-year-old husband in Middlefield Village in 2008.
Christina Newton-John, 52, of Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, is facing one count of fifth-degree felony violating a protection order.
Newton-John previously was convicted in Lake County of violating protection orders in 2014 and three times in 2015.
A warrant was issued for her arrest on April 30.
Newton-John gained national notoriety when convicted for recklessly causing her then husband, James Mason, to suffer a heart attack by repeatedly dunking him and forcing him to stay in the swimming pool at Middlefield Village Apartments, where the couple lived, on June 2, 2008.
Former Middlefield Police Chief Joseph Stehlik said it was the strangest case he had ever investigated.
In 2006, the couple married in Kentucky, a state that allows people to change the gender on their birth certificate thereby permitting the marriage.
Police viewed footage from a surveillance camera fixed above the pool and saw Newton-John abusing her frail husband, who friends said was deathly afraid of water.
Stehlik said he counted 43 separate occasions in which Newton-John prevented Mason from leaving the water. She dragged him around by his arms and legs. On several occasions, he laid his head on the side of the pool gasping for breath.
No future court dates have been set for Newton-John.
