Derek Tussing, 32, of rural Cairo, was sentenced Thursday to 48 months in prison following his conviction earlier this week by an Allen County jury on charges of robbery and theft of a motor vehicle.
J Swygart | The Lima News
LIMA — A rural Cairo man convicted by an Allen County jury earlier this week on charges related to a drug-fueled incident at an area grain elevator was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison.
Allen County Common Pleas Court Judge Terri Kohlrieser sentenced Derek Tussing to 30 months behind bars on a third-degree felony charge of robbery and an 18-month term for grand theft of a motor vehicle.
Jurors deliberated for less than two hours Tuesday before returning guilty verdicts on two of the three counts Tussing faced. He was found not guilty of felonious assault, the most serious of the three charges.
The charges stemmed from an incident on Oct. 29, 2022, when Tussing attempted to pull a woman from her vehicle and, when unsuccessful, climbed into a parked truck and rammed it into a silo at the elevator. An employee of the elevator suffered serious injuries as a result of Tussing’s actions.
Tussing, 32, told jurors he was high on methamphetamines and was experiencing hallucinations at the time of the incident. He testified that he believed his daughter was being held hostage atop a catwalk atop the grain bins at the elevator. He said he rammed the truck into a silo in an attempt to disable the electrical grid at the facility.
Deputy Alan Ogle of the Allen County Sheriff’s Office testified that upon his arrival at the grain elevator on the day in question Tussing was lying on the ground with another deputy standing over him with his service weapon drawn. Jurors then watched cruiser dash camera footage of Tussing attempting to flee from deputies on foot before being Tased, falling to the ground and being taken into custody.
Defense attorney Kenneth Rexford attempted to introduce evidence that Tussing had ingested meth when he believed he had purchased cocaine earlier that day from a drug dealer. Kohlrieser said any suggestion that a mistaken type of drug was ingested was not grounds for a defense in the case.
“There is no law in Ohio that negates voluntary intoxication if drugs are purchased from an illegal source,” the judge said.
During Thursday’s sentencing hearing Assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Kyle Thines asked Kohlrieser to impose the maximum sentence. Rexford asked for a sentence of community control, claiming that his client “at the time did not know what he was doing.”
Tussing, who has been in and out of prison and has been unsuccessfully terminated from probation on more than one occasion, asked Kohlrieser for a chance to turn his life around outside of prison.
“I’ve been doing jail and prison and I’m sick of it,” Tussing said, maintaining he has made strides toward sobriety through counseling and other avenues.
“I honestly believe going back to prison isn’t going to help me at all,” Tussing told the judge. “I’m trying to face my problems head-on. I just need your help.”
But Kohlrieser bristled at the suggestion that the court system over the years has turned its back on Tussing.
“I gave you a chance last time by putting you into re-entry court. I gave you an opportunity. Our recovery team helps every single person going through re-entry court,” the judge said. “You had all kinds of people supporting you and it didn’t help a bit.”
Tussing said he planned to appeal his conviction and sentence.
