The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office is asking for a court hearing to determine whether the detective in an aggravated murder trial and the state’s key witness, listed as Jane Doe in court filings, engaged in an improper relationship before, during and after the trial.
In 2019, a jury convicted Jerry Sims for the murder of Jamarr Forkland.
On Jan. 7, Sims requested a new trial arguing a detective on the case, Kenneth Lundy, who is now East Cleveland’s chief of police, had a sexual relationship with a witness and incited her to lie to the jury to secure a conviction.
In an interview with Ideastream Public Media, Lundy acknowledged having a sexual relationship with the witness, Jane Doe, that started before the trial. Doe was in a relationship with Sims at the time of the murder and was the sole eyewitness who said she saw Sims commit the murder.
Doe has since recanted her testimony and accused Lundy of manipulating her to give false testimony. Sims is asking for a new trial.
Lundy told the prosecutor’s office the relationship started after the trial, according to a spokesperson for the prosecutor.
Instead of defending Sims’s conviction, the prosecutor's office says it wants to parse Lundy’s statements in front of a judge.
“Lundy has made inconsistent post-conviction statements regarding the veracity of Defendant’s allegations,” the prosecutor’s office wrote in its Jan. 31, filing. “Additionally, investigators scheduled an interview with Jane Doe for January 29, 2025, but it was cancelled at the last minute due to the illness of Jane Doe’s counsel. In short, questions remain regarding the claim raised in Defendant’s petition.”
The prosecutor’s Jan. 31 filing opposes Sims’s petition for a new trial but did not lay out an argument for why the conviction should still stand, instead only asked for a hearing.
Ideastream Public Media was issued a grand jury subpoena by the prosecutor’s office after the story with Lundy acknowledging the relationship was posted on Jan. 22.
The prosecutor’s office asked for “all audio, video or text recordings of phone calls, interviews or conversations between Matthew Richmond, or other Ideastream Public Media employees, and Kenneth Lundy, chief of East Cleveland Police” about the Sims case.
Through a lawyer, Ideastream declined to cooperate and noted it had no materials responsive to the prosecutor's request.
Ohio law bars courts from compelling journalists to disclose source information in legal proceedings.
