1 of Piqua trio in June 2014 rape pleads guilty

UPDATE @ 6:30 p.m. (Aug. 25): Harry Reedy, the 59-year-old Piqua resident charged along with two other people in a June 2014 rape of a special needs woman in Troy, has pleaded guilty to two felony charges.

Reedy pleaded guilty today in Miami County Common Pleas Court to single felony counts of rape and gross sexual imposition, amended from a rape charge. A kidnapping charge was dismissed.

Trial for Reedy was to begin Thursday before Judge Christopher Gee, who accepted Reedy’s pleas and found him guilty. A presentence investigation was ordered. Sentencing is set for Oct. 13.

Gee, at competency hearings this month for the victim and two potential witnesses, decided the witnesses were competent for trial but that the victim was not.

Patrick Anthony, 57, also of Piqua, is charged with kidnapping and complicity to rape in the same case. His case is pending before Gee. A third defendant, Trishica Leighly, 37, has not been indicted but recently was charged with intimidation of a witness in the case.

EARLIER REPORT (April 17)

Bail of $500,000 each was ordered Friday in a Miami County court for three Piqua residents accused of kidnapping and rape or complicity to rape involving a special needs adult.

Harry Reedy, 58, is charged with kidnapping and rape. Patrick Anthony, 57, and Trishica Leighly, 37, are charged with kidnapping and complicity to rape. They were arraigned in county Municipal Court.

A Troy police report said the mother of the woman in her early 30s said she was picked up at her Tipp City home by friends the evening of June 27 and returned home the following morning. The mother said the behavior was not normal for her daughter, who said only that she had been with her friends.

The mother called police when she later was told by a caller to her daughter’s phone that she had had sex with him the previous evening. The daughter subsequently told police she had been tied to the bed, handcuffed and raped while her legs were being held down by two people.

Troy police Capt. Chris Anderson said the charges resulted from a joint investigation between Troy and Piqua police. Results of DNA evidence allowed police to file the charges, he said.

“She was definitely taken advantage of,” Anderson said of the victim. The charges specify the victim was “mentally incompetent.”

Other charges are possible against other individuals, Anderson said.

Preliminary hearings for Reedy, Anthony and Leighly are scheduled for April 23.