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Thursday, March 20, 2025

Man Acquitted in 2024 convicted of new attack months later

Ian M. Hayes, 31, of Zanesville was convicted Wednesday by a jury of nine women and three men of kidnapping and strangulation. Judge Gerald Anderson convicted him separately of being a repeat violent offender based upon his 2019 previous conviction for burglary.

In November, Hayes was homeless and had been released from jail following a methamphetamine arrest when he traveled to the home of Christina Hopper, a local woman with whom he shared a sexual relationship.

Hayes misplaced a t-shirt in Hopper’s house and began to blame and accuse her six-year-old son for the situation. Hopper intervened, and as jurors heard in her call to 911, Hayes struck her, threw her to the ground and strangled her.

Hopper believed she was going to die.

Zanesville Police Officers Joe Nelson and Jon Moore responded to the scene, and jurors heard from those officers about the visible injuries on Hopper’s body, as well as her emotion and hysterical state upon their arrival. Her children, who witnessed the incident, were crying and distraught.

Hayes spent the past few months speaking with Hopper from prison and convincing her that he loved her. Hopper changed her mind concerning charges for the assault her children witnessed.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney John Litle, who handled the case, explained to the jury that prosecution is brought up on behalf of the State of Ohio, not at the direction of any particular crime victim.

“Some events are dangerous to the community and to people other than the victim, requiring the attention of the justice system,” according to Litle. He explained that the morals and standards of Muskingum County do not permit strangulation, kidnapping and violence in front of children. Those community standards exist even if Ms. Hopper decided that she would tolerate Hayes’s abuse.

Hopper testified on Hayes’s behalf. Litle and Assistant Prosecutor Lucas Howard showed her testimony to be untruthful and the jury agreed. The jury relied instead on the statements Hopper made on the 911 call, and upon Hayes’s words stated a day later on a phone call where he asked her not to press charges.

In April of 2024, Hayes was in front of a different jury. That time he had burst into a neighbor’s apartment and assaulted her after she complained about his methamphetamine dealing. The neighbor was elderly and had difficulty communicating what happened to her due to some issues related to dementia. Jurors in that case acquitted Hayes and were unwilling to believe the woman’s story of what he had done.

In February of this year, Hayes took another case to trial. In that case, jurors quickly returned a guilty verdict convicting Hayes of possessing methamphetamines, resisting arrest, and obstruction of official business. Judge Anderson sentenced Hayes to the maximum sentence for those offenses.

“We are very satisfied with the jury’s work on this case,” added Litle. “The case was more difficult than most, to say the least. It is uncommon to hand the jury a case in which the victim has lied under oath and claimed the incident didn’t occur.”

“Jurors saw through the lies and returned a verdict based on the truth of what happened.”

Hayes faces sentencing at a later time, with a maximum sentence of twenty-one years in prison.

“When a dangerous person like Hayes takes no responsibility for his actions and loses at trial, the community can expect this office to ask for a maximum, consecutive sentence in every instance,” according to Litle.

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