Bath Township man guilty of gun crimes

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XENIA — A jury found a Bath Township man guilty of felonious assault and other associated charges Tuesday in Greene County Common Pleas Court.

Thomas West, 56, was found guilty of one count of felonious assault with a firearms specification (which carries a mandatory three year sentence), two counts of having weapons under disability and one count of tampering with evidence. West was also found not guilty of one count of felonious assault.

West will be sentenced Nov. 23 by Judge Stephen Wolaver.

When he took the stand Tuesday, West testified that threats he made to his daughter were ones he said he didn’t intend to follow through on.

“I’m going to blow your [expletive] brains out if you don’t give me my stuff back,” he recalled saying to his daughter, but said that his words were “just an idle threat.”

Both West and his daughter testified that he shot her laptop after a run-in between the two earlier in the day. West denied her allegations that he threatened both her and his granddaughter and testified Tuesday that he had never waved a gun at anyone.

According to West’s daughter’s testimony, back in February, after the run-in between the two earlier in the day, he retrieved a shotgun, slammed it on the kitchen table and returned to his room in the house. West’s daughter testified that she took the gun and hid it, because she knew “something was going to happen.”

She later testified that West returned with a revolver and demanded she return the shotgun.

“If you don’t give me the [expletive] shotgun, bullets are going to start flying,” she recalled him saying.

West also testified that after he saw a police cruiser arrive at the house, he took the revolver and shotgun outside because “I didn’t want anything on me” when police arrived.

During testimony Monday, the court also heard from emergency dispatchers who took a 911 call from the incident and Greene County Sheriff’s Office deputies who responded to the scene of the incident.

West was sentenced in 2001 to 17 months in prison for assaulting a peace officer, was sentenced in 1986 on a forgery charge and in 1982 for a breaking and entering charge, according to online court records.

West
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2015/11/web1_west1.jpgWest

By Nathan Pilling

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Reach Nathan Pilling at 937-502-4498 or on Twitter @XDGNatePilling.

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