The Daily Standard
Story Archive
CELINA - After about 45 minutes of deliberation and a one-day trial, a 12-person jury found a 47-year-old Sidney man not guilty this week of trying to cause serious physical harm to his 4-month-old infant and the baby's mother in a Celina alleyway in August.
Benjamin M. Current was acquitted of two counts of attempted felonious assault, a third-degree felony, in Mercer County Common Pleas Court on Monday.
He was originally indicted in September on two counts of felonious assault, a third-degree felony; two counts of domestic violence, a first-degree misdemeanor; and one count of endangering children, a first-degree misdemeanor.
County prosecutor Erin Minor formally dropped the misdemeanor charges on Monday prior to the start of the trial.
The charges originated from an incident that occurred in the southbound alley in the 100 block of West Market Street on Aug. 23.
Celina patrolman Jeremy Kerr was called to the area at about 8:30 p.m. Aug. 23 on a report of a woman yelling for help, an arrest affidavit states. When he arrived, Kerr spoke with a citizen who advised there was an altercation in the alley between a male and female, and that the male had allegedly "ripped out a portion of the female's hair." He then noticed hair lying in the alley.
"I then located and spoke with the female (victim)," Kerr wrote in court documents. "(She) was holding an infant, date of birth: April 4, 2025. (She) told me that she is currently staying at a shelter. She was meeting the father (of the baby), Benjamin Current, in the alley to exchange the child. Current and her met, he handed her the child, still in the car seat, she turned to walk away and Current reached up and grabbed (her) by the back of the hair and violently pulled her to the ground."
The reported action caused the woman and the car seat the infant was in to fall to the ground and her to nearly fall on top of the baby, the affidavit states. Current then reportedly turned and walked away, "with no concern for his child or its mother." He was not on scene at the time of Kerr's arrival.
Kerr noted a small injury to the woman's left elbow and watched surveillance video from a nearby business that captured the event, court documents state.
Following Monday's verdict, Judge Matthew K. Fox dismissed all charges and discharged Current's bond, previously set at $100,000. He had been incarcerated at the Mercer County Adult Detention Facility since August.
