Pam Rosebrook held in contempt of court
"I'm done here." – Pam Rosebrook
Pam Rosebrook was married to Carl Jeffrey Rosebrook for 39 years before they divorced in 2014.
Her ex-husband was the alleged moneyman in the botched murder-for-hire scheme the resulted in the death of the wrong Daniel Ott in 2006.
Prosecutors claim Jeff Rosebrook was responsible for paying Chad South to kill Daniel C. Ott, a career car thief who turned state’s evidence against Jeff’s brother, Joseph, in 2004.
Instead, South murdered 31-year-old Daniel E. Ott inside his Burton Township.
Prosecutors called Pam to the witness stand on the second day of Joe’s murder-for-hire jury trial.
She had shared her knowledge of the brothers’ close relationship during a more than 90-minute interview with Geauga County Sheriff’s Office detectives in mid August, according to prosecutors.
But instead of testifying consistently with what she had told investigators, Pam turned hostile and denied any knowledge of who handled Joe’s finances after he was sentenced to prison in 2005 for the attempted murder-for-hire of a former business associate, Curtis Frazier.
“From your knowledge, do you know who handled Joe Rosebrook’s financials when he was in prison,” Geauga County Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Driscoll asked Pam.
“I don’t know who handled all his money,” Pam answered.
“So you never told anybody Jeff Rosebrook handled his money,” Driscoll said.
“No,” said Pam. “Jeff had some of it, but not all of it.”
She also denied knowledge of a bank account that Jeff kept for his brother.
Surprised by Pam’s answers, prosecutors were allowed to have Pam read a summary of her interview with sheriff’s office detectives Juanita Vetter and Tom Lombardo on Aug. 15.
In the summary, Pam apparently told detectives Jeff had hundreds of thousands of Joe’s money, some in cash and some in a bank account. She also called Joe dangerous and said she was afraid of Jeff.
After reading the summary, however, Pam told Driscoll it was “all wrong” and that detectives got “everything ass backwards,” denying she said “half of this crap.”
Driscoll asked her if she was afraid to testify and Pam said no.
Prosecutors excused Pam and said they would recall her to the stand first thing Wednesday morning to play relevant portions of her recorded interview with detectives.
When Pam was called back to the stand Wednesday morning, however, she refused to testify.
“I plead the Fifth,” she told Driscoll in open court, in front of the jury. “I’m done here.”
Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge David Fuhry promptly excused the jury for the day and despite a grant of immunity from prosecution, Pam said she would not testify.
Fuhry found her in contempt of court and appointed Chardon lawyer Paul Mooney to represent her.
Mooney and Pam are scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. in the Geauga County Courthouse.
In other developments, prosecutors said Daniel C. Ott also is refusing to testify.
Ott currently is serving time in a federal prison in Kentucky, but was transported to Geauga County to testify at Joe’s trial.
