Fraley has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Butler County Common Pleas Judge Michael Oster Jr. set bond for Fraley at $500,000. As part of the part of bond, Oster also ordered Fraley wear a GPS monitor, have no contact with any children, including his own, to have no internet access and to report twice per week to pretrial services.
In June, Fraley’s attorney, Chris Pagan, requested a change in that bond to allow him to work so he can pay his attorney. Pagan filed a motion to modify bond to permit Fraley to travel in more surrounding counties.
Fraley’s family owns a Butler County trucking company, and he can work for that company, but it requires traveling through Preble, Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Clark counties to get to a customer in Springfield, according to Pagan.
The prosecution requested Fraley be required to provide a work order and travel itinerary that includes location and stops along the way prior to the trips so his movements and purpose can be monitored and verified.
Oster granted the bond change and the prosecution’s request on monitoring.
In March, Pagan also filed a motion to suppress evidence, including items taken from a Middletown home on Crawford Street, cell phone, computers and other electronic devices.
Pagan argued some of the search warrants were not properly signed by the magistrate and relied on an uncorroborated statement from a woman with a drug addiction and a case through Butler County Children Services.
A computer believed to belong to Fraley contained “a very large amount of child pornography — over 1,200 videos depicting children engaged in sexual activity, much of which has been duplicated by defendant’s backing up the videos from his phone to his computer. The most recent unidentified backup occurred on Oct. 29 (in 2019),” Assistant Butler County Prosecutor Kelly Heile said in court documents.
The motion also says some of the images allegedly traced to Fraley’s digital payment service include sex acts involving toddler-aged children. One of the images may have been taken at a previous residence shared by a witness and Fraley, according to Heile.
A hearing was originally set for April, but did not happen. Pre-trial hearings have been continued and it appears no additional date has been set for the suppression hearing, according to court records. A trial date has also not been set for Fraley.
On Sept 22, Heile requested the court set a hearing date. According to the clerk of courts website, a hearing date has not been set.
Pagan said through his office on Tuesday that he was unavailable for comment.
About the Author
