Bond has been denied for a man whose life sentence for rape were reversed by an appeals court.

The 6th District Court of Appeals in June overturned Gregory Kamer Jr.’s November 2020 sentence of four consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole, plus 30 months.

Kamer was transported from the jail Tuesday to the courtroom of Wood County Common Pleas Judge Joel Kuhlman for a bond hearing.

His attorney, Scott Coon, asked for bond to be set to allow Kamer to be released from prison.

Wood County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Pamela Gross asked for a $500,000 bond, no 10%.

Kuhlman denied bond; Kamer will remain in jail until his new trial on Jan. 9.

The appeals court found that testimony and the improper admittance of numerous incriminating statements through hearsay testimony was allowed by former Wood County Common Pleas Judge Alan Mayberry.

Gross argued that at the new trial, the alleged victim, who was 5 years old at the time she made the accusation, will be willing to testify.

“She’s older now and better understands what happened to her,” Gross said.

The previous jury found Kamer guilty of four counts of rape and one count of gross sexual imposition. At sentencing, Mayberry imposed consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole for each rape conviction and 30 months for the GSI conviction.

Kamer poses serious risk of harm to the community, Gross said.

Wood County Sheriff’s Office Lt. James Webb took the stand and testified that the day after the verdict was read, he called the prosecutor’s office to report Kamer had made threatening statements about the alleged victim’s mother during a telephone call.

Coon said that his client was upset after having wrongly been convicted of rape.

“And he didn’t receive a fair trial, did he?” Coon asked Webb. “After being convicted on inadmissible evidence and going to prison for life, don’t you think he’d be a little frustrated?”

Gross outlined Kamer’s past conduct as another reason to keep him in jail, including multiple domestic violence charges and drug possession charges, for which he served time.

“He poses a threat to society, he poses a threat to specific people in this case, he poses a threat to the community at large,” she said.

“There is no public risk,” Coon said, adding that Kamer would be on house arrest and there are no minor children in the home. “If he leaves, he will be arrested. He has no money, where is he going to go?”

There is no evidence that Kamer committed physical injury on the alleged victim, Coon said, and added that much of the evidence supplied in the previous trial has been deemed inadmissible.

Kuhlman said he had reviewed the appellate decision and took into consideration Kamer’s past convictions and phone calls after the trial, and determined Kamer continues to pose a threat to the community and the alleged victim.

In November 2018, Kamer, who is now 36, was indicted on 12 charges related to the sexual abuse of a child who was 5 years old at the time.

Eight charges were for rape, all first-degree felonies; two were for gross sexual imposition, both third-degree felonies; and two were for disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.

The appeals court also found that certain hearsay evidence was improperly admitted and likely affected the verdict, specifically the child’s incriminating statements — given through testimony of the police detective and the child abuse investigator — that was not part of the child’s testimony.