11:52 AM ET
Associated Press
CLEVELAND -- Two men accused of stuffing 5 walleye with pb weights and food filets during a lucrative sportfishing tourney connected Lake Erie pleaded not blameworthy to cheating and different charges connected Wednesday.
Jacob Runyan, 42, of Broadview Heights, Ohio, and Chase Cominsky, 35, of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, made nary comments during their little tribunal appearances successful Cleveland. Their attorneys declined to remark astir the lawsuit aft the hearing.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor James Gutierrez besides declined to comment, referring questions to a spokesperson.
The cheating allegations surfaced Sept. 30 erstwhile Lake Erie Walleye Trail tourney manager Jason Fischer became suspicious due to the fact that Runyan's and Cominsky's food were importantly heavier than walleye of that magnitude typically are. An aggravated assemblage astatine Gordon Park successful Cleveland watched Fischer chopped the walleye unfastened and denote determination were weights and food fillets stuffed wrong them.
An serviceman from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources confiscated the food arsenic evidence.
Runyan and Cominsky were indicted earlier this period connected felony charges of cheating, attempted expansive theft, possessing transgression tools and misdemeanor charges of unlawfully owning chaotic animals.
Both were released Wednesday connected idiosyncratic bonds of $2,500.
The archetypal spot prize successful the tourney totaled astir $28,000.
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