When Joseph Rosebrook was sent to the London Correctional Institution in 2005 for the attempted murder-for-hire of Curtis Frazer, a new name allegedly made it to the top of his hit list: Daniel C. Ott — a man in his late 60s at the time who turned state’s evidence against his former business associate, sending him to prison for 10 years.
Joseph Rosebrook, right, a Logan County native charged with arranging a murder- for-hire in which the wrong man was killed, speaks with a lawyer during his trial in Geauga County Common Pleas Court this week. (PHOTO | GEAUGA COUNTY MAPLE LEAF)
Rosebrook, a Logan County native, reportedly made it known he wanted a “snitch” killed and was introduced to another inmate at London Correctional Institution who could help. He allegedly asked the man about “killing somebody.”
“I told him if it was in the penitentiary it could be done because I was never going home,” a key prosecution witness told jurors on Day 4 of Rosebrook’s trial for the mistaken-identity murder of Daniel E. Ott, 31, of Burton Township in 2006. “He told me it wasn’t in the penitentiary.”
Prosecutors asked the witness remain nameless out of fear for his safety. In fact, he only agreed to testify in the trial — which is in Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge David Fuhry’s courtroom — on condition the state of Ohio move him to an out-of-state prison to serve out the remaining years on an 18-years-to-life sentence for a 1993 murder conviction.
“I’ve got a reputation in the penitentiary and me doing this right here, I already know what’s going to happen when Joe goes to prison,” the man said. “He’s going to send word from prison to prison to prison to prison and then it’s going to be all bad for me.”