In the days following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with protests occurring across the country, a local judge sealed filings in a massive drug prosecution that many say would have put Zanesville at the forefront of national attention.

The filings, which Muskingum County Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Fleegle has still yet to unseal, allegedly contains evidence of racial remarks by prosecutors, allegations that elected officials use illegal drugs and that county funds are siphoned off for unknown unauthorized uses.

While working to bring light to the purported evidence, Y-City News was threatened with criminal charges and imprisonment should we reveal the existence of the sealed filings, threats often only experienced by the press in repressive regimes. The perpetrator of those threats has previously received FBI protection, which federal authorities declined to confirm, and was allegedly also the previous target of a federal investigation.

Federal officials, we are told, were aware of the filings and allegations, including former U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, who ensured federal charges were not brought – keeping the matter local and confidential. For his part, after leaving federal service, DeVillers received tens of thousands of county tax dollars acting as a special prosecutor in what many have repeatedly called a payoff agreement to protect local officials.

In early 2020, the largest drug dealer to ever be captured in Muskingum County, Dwight Taylor, was arrested. He was taken into custody at a home owned by his long-time girlfriend, Deborah Kirsch, who had bought the property from County Judge Jay Vinsel in the 1990s after Taylor was arrested on a parole violation. Facing a return to prison, he was released within a week of the sale of the property, Vinsel was an assistant county prosecutor at the time. Muskingum County Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Fleegle was the county prosecutor during the late 90s and hired Vinsel telling the local newspaper that the two had known each other since he was 12 years old; Fleegle presided over the criminal case of both Taylor and Kirsch in the 2020s.

Sheriff Matt Lutz said at a press conference following Taylor’s arrest that law enforcement struggled to build a case on the drug kingpin over the preceding decades, yet he was closer to those in power than they would like to admit. Judge Vinsel, for example, retained hunting rights on Kirsch’s property and multiple sources say the two were well acquainted; those same sources alleged that Taylor was paying protection money to avoid arrest and prosecution.

After his arrest, authorities also arrested Kirsch, who ultimately hired a law firm out of Dayton to represent her. While being held on a one million dollar bond, her attorney, John Paul Rion, filed a motion in her defense, just days after the death of George Floyd, which sparked racial tension across the country. The following day, Judge Mark Fleegle sealed the filing, an extremely uncommon move. No filings were sealed in Taylor’s case, for example, or in the following months when members of a massive drug cartel were taken down, according to a review of each case file.

In one of those cartel member’s cases, State of Ohio vs. Jose Gonzalez, a judge from Texas came up to Muskingum County to defend the cartel member who couldn’t speak English. That attorney, Orlando Jiminez, alleged that $350,000 in cash went missing from the case and that his client still had valuable information about the local drug trade. ‘Wouldn’t we want to try to go higher up,’ Jiminez said in court.

Traditionally, if an attorney knows the filing contains private or confidential information that should not be disseminated, such as the name of a confidential informant, they will provide the court with advanced notice so that it is not made public, however, at trial, that does not shield that information from being made available.

It has been alleged by sources that the information in that filing contained evidence of racial slurs by members of the Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office, including the N-word, as well as unbefitting conduct such as the alleged use of body fluids which likely would constitute a sex crime offense.

The filing submitted also allegedly included proof of elected officials using illegal drugs and that county funds were being misused.

In the course of attempting to verify or dismiss the claims, Y-City News reached out to many officials including Judge Mark Fleegle; he refused to discuss the matter or provide any context. After first approaching Fleegle with the matter, he bared the media from his courtroom under the pretense that the court was updating its media attendance policy; that occurred for many months, effectively baring Y-City News from covering matters before the Muskingum County Court of Common Pleas.

Unlike other complex large drug cases, the defendants were not bound over to federal court. Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney David DeVillers was the top federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Ohio at the time giving him the ultimate authority if federal criminal charges would be brought and or if investigations of wrongdoing would precede. After leaving federal service, Judge Fleegle – acting as the Chief Judge of the Court of Common Pleas – approved the appointment and payment of funds to DeVillers to act as a special prosecutor in Muskingum County; a move a previous investigative piece by our publication found to be extremely abnormal – we also found he was improperly paid out of a courthouse fund.

Y-City News has covered hundreds of cases before Judge Fleegle over the years and found him to be extremely professional and ethical in his conduct, this deviation and a lack of an explanation is very unusual; Judge Fleegle was given numerous chances to comment or provide an explanation over a multi-month period.

In an attempt to help protect said individuals if the claims turn out to be false, Y-City News is not naming those for which the allegations are made. To protect sources and methods, Y-City News is not providing more context as to the details of the evidence as it was submitted to the court. Federal Authorities in the Southern District of Ohio declined to comment.

Y-City News continues to investigate. Do you have additional information about this situation, other information you think our news organizing should know about or want to bring our attention to a matter that needs investigating? We would like to hear from you. Contact us at (740) 562-6252, email us at contact@ycitynews.com or mail us at PO Box 686, Zanesville, Ohio 43701. All sources are kept strictly confidential.