Man accused in fatal Walmart shooting wants new bond set

A Hamilton man in jail for nearly a year after his arrest within hours of a fatal shooting in a Fairfield Twp. Walmart wants a judge to set bond.

Anthony F. Brown, 32, is charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, felonious assault and having weapons under disability for the May 26, 2022, double shooting that killed a customer at the Princeton Road store.

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He is scheduled to be back in Butler County Common Pleas Court for a pretrial hearing with a new court appointed attorney. Attorney Clyde Bennett II, who was retained to represent Brown at the time of his arrest, withdrew from the case in March citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Butler County Common Pleas Judge Dan Haughey said he had received a letter from Brown “expressing dissatisfaction with present counsel (Bennett).”

Attorney Philip Stephens from the Butler County public defender office was appointed to the case and the trial scheduled for in June was cancelled.

Stephens filed a motion April 11 asking the judge to reinstate and lower bond. Brown has been in the Butler County Jail for months without bond after his first attorney questioned his competency and sanity at the time he allegedly committed the crimes.

In January, after a series of legal maneuvering, including the questions of competency and sanity raised by Bennett, Brown was declared fit for trial.

Stephens said in the bond motion, Brown’s bond was originally set at $900,000 before question of his sanity. Brown’s sanity is no longer in question after he was evaluated by several forensic psychologists and the attorney requested the judge reinstate the bond and consider lowering it.

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In the May 26, 2022 incident at Walmart, Brown allegedly tried to steal cell phones. He is accused of shooting and killing Adam Black, 35, a Hamilton man who had recently moved to the area and who just learned he was going to be a father. Brown also is accused of shooting and wounding Eric Ruff, 57, of Fairfield, a Walmart employee who survived.

A SWAT team took Brown into custody at a Fairfield Inn in Middletown several hours after the shooting.

Brown is also accused of robbing an employee at gunpoint at Minnick’s Drive Thru on Dixie Highway on Oct. 15, 2021, taking cash and lottery tickets. He was out of jail on a $200,000 bond for that alleged crime at the time of the Walmart shooting. That case is still pending.