CINCINNATI (WKRC) — Ohio’s attorney general wants a crowdfunding site to remove a page that would benefit an accused killer.
Rodney Hinton, Jr. is charged with killing Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson earlier in May. Hinton’s family is using the crowdfunding site “GiveSendGo.” They’ve already raised $50,000 from 1,300 donors.
The attorney general, the police, and the attorneys for Deputy Henderson’s estate want them to give the money back. Hinton Jr.’s sister said that the money will be used to “help her brother and family with any decisions that need to be made.”
“This is not right. This is not good,” said Attorney General Dave Yost at a press conference on Tuesday. “We shouldn’t be crowdfunding an evildoer.”
The attorney general is asking GiveSendGo to remove the Hinton site and refund the money already donated, much like GoFundMe did when the family first tried to raise money there.
It should be noted Hinton, Jr. is only accused of capital murder, not convicted. He was arrested on May 2 after he allegedly ran over and killed Deputy Larry Henderson, a retired Hamilton County deputy working a traffic detail for UC’s graduation. It came a day after Cincinnati Police shot and killed Hinton, Jr.’s son, Ryan Hinton, who was allegedly running from police and threatening an officer with a handgun.
If you read some of the comments by the donors, it is unlikely they would want their money back, saying things like, “I would have done the same thing,” “An eye for an eye,” “We can only take so much,” and “They have to stop killing our kids.”
Chief Rich Wallace with Amberly Village Police was also at the press conference.
“That’s got to evoke an emotion when you hear this?” Local 12 asked.
“Well, it doesn’t because we deal with it every day,” Wallace said. “It’s just what we deal with in our job on a day-to-day basis.”
“This money is presumably being raised to present a defense for someone who is accused of a crime. How can you be against someone trying to get the best defense possible?” Local 12 asked Yost.
“The bottom line is that I think it should be the policy of Ohio that crowdfunding platforms are not permitted to raise money on the backs of a notorious and disgusting crime. Period,” said Yost.
Yost went on to point out that the Hinton GiveSendGo page said nothing about Hinton Jr.’s defense. The attorney for Deputy Henderson’s estate said that he is working with two state representatives to amend a law currently on Ohio’s books designed to keep people and companies from profiting from criminal acts.
“GiveSendGo makes money off every penny donated to these crowdfunding campaigns,” said Zach Gottesman. “They are commercially profiting off the murder of this deputy. That’s repugnant. That should be outlawed.”
Ohio’s current law prohibits people from profiting from criminal acts, but the law is narrow, limiting that profit to things like book and movie deals. When the law was written, web-based crowdfunding had not been invented. So, it does not apply here—but that could soon change if the law is changed.
Local 12 contacted GiveSendGo to see if it would comment about the attorney general’s request that it remove Hinton’s page, but we’ve not yet received a reply. The Hinton family, through their attorneys, also declined to comment for this story.
