Audio files released Friday by the Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office backup allegations by convicted drug kingpin Dwight Taylor that he was friends with a local judge who initially handled his case, a fact that altered court documents attempted to disguise.

“I hit it lucky with the judge,” Taylor can be heard saying on a recorded jailhouse call. According to him, Judge Jay Vinsel and he were hunting buddies. The judge also had a real estate transaction with Taylor’s longtime girlfriend in the 1990s within a week of Taylor being caught up on a parole violation for which he retained hunting rights, Vinsel was an assistant county prosecutor at that time; he was then released from jail and nothing became of the infraction, sparing him a return to prison.

The recorded calls are part of a broader request for documents and files in the criminal case of Taylor, who officials said was able to elude prosecution during his decades of running his illegal drug operation. Interviews and paperwork made available to Y-City News, however, are beginning to paint another more unsettling reality, Taylor was far more connected to those in power than they would care to admit.

Dwight Taylor was arrested in early 2020 and was reportedly the largest drug dealer to ever be apprehended in Muskingum County. Both Sheriff Matt Lutz and former Zanesville Police Chief Tony Coury spoke at a press conference in April of that year about the extensive investigation and techniques needed to take Taylor down.

To the surprise of many, including Taylor, the case was never bound over to federal court, even though Homeland Security Investigations assisted in the case and it ultimately led to the capture and prosecution of Mexican cartel leaders.

While investigating concerning allegations surrounding the top federal prosecutor in Ohio who would have made the call to bring those criminal charges, David DeVillers, who had both recent and historical connections to Zanesville, we received tips to reexamine the Dwight Taylor case. As we began to take a fresh look at it, numerous concerning details began to become apparent.

Over the greater part of this year, we discovered that Muskingum County Court Judge Jay Vinsel had sold land to Taylor’s longtime girlfriend, Deborah Kirsch, just days after he had been picked up on a parole violation. Perplexingly, Vinsel retained hunting rights on that property, the same property that Taylor would ultimately be arrested at in 2020 and where sizable amounts of cash were found.

Taylor had a prior criminal history and faced being sent back to prison, but after the property was sold from Vinsel to Kirsch, the investigation was dropped and Taylor was out of jail; Vinsel was an assistant county prosecutor at that time. The elected county prosecutor overseeing the case, Mark Fleegle, was up until Friday a Court of Common Pleas Judge and handled both criminal cases of Taylor and Kirsch.

Y-City News discovered that Fleegle sealed filings with the court made by Kirsch’s attorney in her criminal case that allegedly contain evidence that prosecutors used racial remarks, including the N-word, as well as that elected officials in Muskingum County use illegal drugs. Fleegle, whose term didn’t expire until the end of 2026 retired Friday, a little more than a week after our publication revealed those allegations.

Many months ago, Y-City News filed public records request seeking among other things Dwight Taylor’s criminal case file and any audio or video files attached to it. It wasn’t until right after we traveled to Belmont Correctional Institution to interview Taylor in person that our request received any attention, the Sheriff’s Department then sat it on for many weeks until recent additional publications on the case. Ultimately, we were provided a flash drive that we were told would contain our request, but it was severely lacking what we had asked for, including the absence of any audio files, such as jailhouse calls, that were even cited in provided police reports.

During our interview with Taylor, he spoke about how his ‘hunting buddy Jay’ had offered him a lower bond that would allow him to get out if he could conjure up the cash. As he had corn stored at the Farm Supply Center in Zanesville, and as it had not already been seized or had a hold placed on it, Taylor intended to use that as a portion of his bond payment. In one of Detective Matt Wilhite’s reports, there was a reference to a jailhouse call about that discussion with a relative, but a transcript of that call or the audio recording of it was not provided. Sheriff Matt Lutz was given advanced notice that an article would go up late Monday evening and that the audio tape would be a valuable resource to either dismiss Taylor’s claims or corroborate them, he didn’t respond to our request nor did he provide the files.

Friday afternoon, the Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office provided two jailhouse calls from April 8, 2020, the date of Taylor’s arraignment and the major topic of our last publication on the matter, it confirmed much of what Taylor alleged.

In the first audio call, Taylor is speaking to a relative about how he is about to be arraigned. During that discussion, he talked about how he had 10,000 bushels of corn that he was storing at the Farm Supply Center. The current price was $3.50 a bushel and he was hoping to hold until the price exceeded $4 a bushel, selling at the lower price would net him roughly $35,000 – he would need to come up with ten percent of his two million dollar bond, or about $200,000 to make bail.

During that first call, he talks about the advantages and disadvantages of having an out-of-county attorney.

“Maybe getting a local attorney would not stir as much dirt, mud in this town, getting him is kind of like like coming in here and trying to smack them in the face, but what do you do, smack them in the face or get smacked in the face yourself,” says Taylor in the jailhouse call to his relative.

In that call, the relative also tells Taylor that they were instructed not to enter any of the properties he owned that had been raided, when he asked who had told her that, she said it was Sheriff Matt Lutz.

“I called him yesterday, well he text me yesterday to call him and I called him,” the relative tells Taylor.

There was additional discussion before the topic turned to Taylor speaking about heading down to his arraignment.

“Be careful what you say down in that arrangement,” the relative tells Taylor. “Mind your Ps and Qs in that arraignment.”

“We’ll see,” Taylor says with a laugh before the call ends.

In documents obtained from the Muskingum County Court, Judge Scott Rankin appears to have been Taylor’s judge before being indicted and bound over to felony court, however, as previously reported by Y-City News, in his arraignment filing, it appears that the original signature name has been whited out. That is evident by the fact that the letter y in Taylor is missing its distinctive horizontal line under it which other words with the letter y are not missing.

During our interview with Taylor, he was adamant that he had spoken to Judge Vinsel on the day of his arraignment, the second jailhouse call corroborates that, stating that he knew the difference between Judge Vinsel and Judge Rankin.

The second call is with the same relative on the same day following his arraignment.

There is a discussion about his current attorney and how he is being less than responsive as well as how the firm will only take cash as a retainer, which both Taylor and the relative agreed was alarming. He also speaks about how he had additional charges filed against him.

“I hit it lucky with the judge, that Jay Vinsel, and if we can come up with $50,000 somehow, get me out of here,” Taylor tells his relative.

“Umm ya you did get lucky,” the relative tells Taylor in response.

“Jay said he could allow 10% down but he said you need to just come up $50,000 that way it’s refundable when the case is over,” Taylor adds.

The relative asks if it’s ten percent of $50,000 or if the $50,000 is ten percent, confused as his original bond was two million dollars.

“It’s a straight $50,000 cash I’m almost sure,” Taylor responds.

There is then a discussion about hiring another attorney, Michael Connick, who the relative says is a big lawyer from Cleveland who just moved to town but that he will need a retainer.

The relative says that she believes there is something up with Taylor’s current attorney, William Jeffrey Moore.

“I mentioned to Vinsel that I was going to use this Jeff Moore,” Taylor said to his relative on the recorded jailhouse call. “He says hmm haven’t seen him around here for a while.”

There is then a discussion about if the clerk at the Courthouse can take that amount of cash whether it was ten percent of $50,000 or the full $50,000 – there is no court documents or files provided to Y-City News that mention this arrangement or specific bond amount; a transcript of Taylor’s arraignment was not provided.

In our exclusive interview with Dwight Taylor at prison in Saint Clairsville, four years after his arrest, Taylor spoke about how Judge Vinsel often helped him with evictions when renters, as they often did, failed to pay. He also said that the lower bond amount was going to be $75,000.

“He says we’re setting your bail at $75,000 and I’m like well it says on the search warrant my bail was going to be two million,” Taylor recalled. “And I’m like welp ol Jay is doing me a favor.”

“And of course, the county recorded everything and so they run right down there and put a seizure hold on $30,000 worth of my corn, from my farm that I raised and combined and stored for sale later on,” Taylor said. “So they tricked me you might say and then they hauled me right back down and set my bond at five million dollars.”

Muskingum County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kelley Cottrill was the judicial officer to approve Detective Wilhite’s request to freeze and seize assets or accounts in the name of Dwight Taylor at the Farm Supply Center in Zanesville.

Court documents obtained by Y-City News do indicate that Taylor originally had a two million dollar bond. Taylor was arrested on April 6, 2020, at his girlfriend’s home along Green Valley Road. In the morning of April 8, 2020, there was a Muskingum County Court entry where Taylor’s bond was signed by the judge affirming the two million dollar bond, however, later that afternoon, another entry was filed with the court, this time raising the bond to five million dollars; each of the respective bonds required GPS monitoring. Taylor was indicted on April 15, 2020, and his case was transferred to the Court of Common Pleas, docketed to Judge Mark Fleegle.

Additional jailhouse calls, among many other files and recordings, requested by Y-City News many months ago, referenced in parts of his released criminal case file, have yet to be delivered, it is believed by Taylor and many others that those calls contain information regarding other pertinent discussions surrounding the case and his connection to local elected officials.

Judge Jay Vinsel, as well as other officials, have repeatedly declined to comment.

Y-City News continues to investigate. Do you have additional information about this case, 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.