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Donnell maintains his innocence of the charges, and was selected randomly during mass arrests and hit with a blanket charge of felony aggravated riot. During the uprising police chose mainly not to arrest those who were fighting back, and instead chose to focus on easy arrests, such as people watching from their lawns and other non-combatants.
Having originally taken a plea when faced with a jury containing eight people with direct ties to law enforcement, Donnell chose to vacate his plea in hopes of avoiding the stain of a felony conviction on his record.
After more than a year and a half prosecutors were forced to admit they had no evidence linking him to aggravated rioting charges and dropped the charge to misdemeanor riot. Under pressure from his attorney, and with the assurance that he would face little in the way of punishment, he took an Alford plea to the misdemeanor charge. Despite the assurances of his lawyer, Donnell was handed a harsher sentence than most who were convicted on felony charges, including time in a work release program. When the police in charge of work release refused to allow him out to find work, presumably so they could force him to serve additional time behind bars, he fled and has been living underground ever since.
Donnell is now seeking to appeal his conviction and come out of hiding. He faces a long, costly, uphill legal battle and needs public support to be successful in proving his innocence and winning his frredom.Donations for his legal aid fund are being handled by Toledo's October Fifteenth Anarchist Collective ([email protected]), the Toledo Justice Project ([email protected]), and Anti-Racist Action (http://arastore.com/product_info.php?products_id=120&os Csid=7cba9511a05fc94bf38aa3524a8d63f5).