The Repository
CANTON – A jury has acquitted a Stark County doctor accused of sexually assaulting a minor following his trial in Common Pleas Court. I want all my patients in the area to know that their physician is not capable of doing this. I am innocent, not guilty, Dr. Joseph Cook, 54 of Tuscarawas Township said later Friday following the jury s decision.
Cook said he cried after leaving the Stark County Courthouse, and then called his supporters to relay the news of his acquittal.
Cook was arrested last May by U.S. Marshals and Stark County Sheriff’s deputies. He was later indicted by a Stark County grand jury on one count each of rape, a first-degree felony, and gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony, stemming from allegations of sexual contact with a young girl sleeping over at his home in December 2019.
CANTON Large photos of a happy and vibrant Kerry-Anne Mumford were shown to the man who killed her and dumped her body in a creek.
The adult daughter of the 41-year-old Mumford wanted Scott A. Birch to be forced to confront cheerful photographs of the woman whose life he brutally ended.
During the Birch s sentencing hearing on Friday, Stark County Assistant Prosecutor Dennis Barr displayed the images in front of a video monitor linked to the Stark County Jail, where the defendant stood with his attorney.
The Massillon woman was a daughter, girlfriend, mother of three children. She was cherished by those who sat in Stark County Common Pleas Court, expressing both the great loss they are suffering as well as anger toward Birch.