An appeals court in the case of former Dayton restaurant owner Eva Christian threw out the most serious felony conviction against her and reduced the severity of two other counts.
Christian already has served two years of a nine-year prison sentence on five felonies related to insurance fraud.
In a summary of its ruling released Friday, the Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals said there was "insufficient evidence from which the jury could have concluded that the defendant engaged in a pattern of corrupt activity," which was the basis of the most serious first-degree felony charge Christian faced. "Accordingly, that conviction will be reversed."
Christian, who owned and operated Boulevard Haus (formerly Cafe Boulevard) in Dayton's Oregon District for 15 years, remains convicted of four felonies related to insurance fraud and filing false alarms and still faces deportation upon her release from prison, whenever that occurs. The appeals court returned the case to Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Barbara P. Gorman for re-sentencing.
The appeal was heard by Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals judges Jeffrey E. Froehlich, Mary E. Donovan and Michael T. Hall.
The case revolved around break-ins and a fire during 2009 that Christian reported and prosecutors said were staged to collect insurance money: one break-in at her Washington Twp. home and a reported vandalism and fire at her now-defunct Cena Brazilian Steakhouse in Miami Twp., near the Dayton Mall.
Testimony by prosecution witnesses suggested that Christian conspired with two accomplices in the break-in and in the restaurant vandalism. But whether that conspiracy made Christian guilty of a first-degree felony charge of "engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity" - often used in organized crime cases - was the issue appeals judges focused on during oral arguments on March 4.
Christian, born in Croatia and raised in Germany, has German citizenship
