BUCYRUS — Crawford County Common Pleas Court Judge Sean Leuthold sentenced Kiersten Grindle, 23, of Galion to four years in prison Thursday.

Grindle had been on community control after pleading guilty to one count of trafficking in drugs and another count of tampering with evidence. She violated the conditions of her community control in December when she was found in possession of drug paraphernalia, synthetic drugs and had contact with a known felon.

Grindle appeared in court with her attorney Adam Stone, who addressed the court on Grindle’s behalf.

“I’m getting down to brass tacks here. If I let you out early somewhere down the road, you have got to get your life together,” Leuthold said. “If you mess up on my community control, I will put you back in prison and you will do the whole sentence. Do you understand?”

Grindle acknowledged she did.

“We will do everything we can to help you or you can drive yourself down the toilet. I’ll keep you in prison rather than see you dead,” the judge said.

In other court business, Nathan Mcle, 46, of Crestline appeared with his attorney Adam Stone to discuss several matters of evidence as Mcle prepares to go on trial Feb 13.

Mcle is charged with two first-degree felony counts of rape and one fifth-degree felony count of disseminating material harmful to a juvenile.

In an effort to establish a pattern of habitual lying on the part of the alleged victim, Stone sought to use records from the Galion City Schools, Mansfield Police Department, the Village Network, and the Ohio Job and Family Services.

Leuthold denied the motion to use the records. Leuthold did allow an incident that happened on the school bus to be entered into evidence because that incident triggered the investigation into the rape charges.

Other records Stone wanted placed into evidence were deemed inadmissible under the Rape Shield Protection Law of Ohio. The Rape Shield law limits a defendant’s ability to introduce evidence or cross-examine rape complaints regarding the victim’s past sexual history.

Leuthold did allow items entered into evidence as admissible as long as they did not include reference to any sexual behavior of the alleged victim. He also recognized an ongoing objection by Stone to those rulings.

The matters, according to Leuthold, will be revisited during trial.

Leuthold also warned Stone that he has a very “steep hill” to climb to infer that someone has a semi-automatic tendency to lie.

“It’s difficult to prove that someone would automatically lie without thinking; when indeed they have to decide to tell the truth or lie,” Leuthold said.