February 2, 2006

By Robert Mihalek

Michael Rittenhouse must pay more than $434,000 in restitution to the family of Tim Lopez, as part of Rittenhouse’s admission that he killed his high school classmate three years ago, a Greene County judge has ruled.

The ruling is part of the criminal case against Rittenhouse, who last March pleaded guilty for the murder of Lopez, receiving a prison sentence of 15 years to life from Judge J. Timothy Campbell of the Greene County Common Pleas Court. Rittenhouse also received a one-year sentence for gross abuse of a corpse. Now 22, he is incarcerated at the Lebanon Correctional Institution.

Lopez was a senior at Yellow Springs High School when he disappeared in January 2002. He was missing for two years before his body was found buried in the backyard of the Allen Street home Rittenhouse shared with his mother and brother.

Rittenhouse admitted to hitting Lopez, his YSHS classmate, over the head with a baseball bat while in his basement, where he stored the body until he buried it later.

A hearing on the restitution issue was held Sept. 30, 2005.

In a ruling issued Jan. 5, and then amended the next day for technical reasons, Judge Campbell ordered Rittenhouse to pay restitution totaling $434,741 to members of Lopez’s family and to his estate.

Of the total, $344,350 is to be paid to the estate, most of which, Judge Campbell ruled, represents a loss of potential income from Lopez. The earning potential was calculated from testimony from economist Lawrence Hadley, Judge Campbell wrote in his ruling.

Judge Campbell determined that Lopez’s mother, Barbara McQuiston, will receive $45,370 in restitution for expenses related to investigations, medical care and legal action; his father, John Lopez, will receive $32,154 for travel, medical and legal expenses; and Lopez’s grandfather, Edward I. McQuiston, is entitled to nearly $12,867 for costs related to selling Lopez’s car.

Suzanne Schmidt, the first prosecuting attorney for Greene County, said that while she is grateful that the court granted the restitution order, “no amount of money can make up” for the “intolerable cruelty” that the Lopez family has suffered.

“It’s a cost the family will never recover from, financially or otherwise,” she said.

The prosecutor’s office had asked for $1 million on behalf of the family, Schmidt said.

One of Rittenhouse’s defense lawyers, John H. Rion, said, “It’s always difficult to make an assessment” in these cases. He commended Judge Campbell for the “amount of work he does in coming to these decisions.”

Rion said he suspected that because Rittenhouse is incarcerated the restitution money would eventually come from an Ohio victimization fund.

Schmidt said Judge Campbell’s ruling ends the penalty portion of Rittenhouse’s case.

However, a wrongful death civil lawsuit, filed by Lopez’s estate in Greene County Common Pleas Court, is still ongoing. A jury trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 6, 2006.

The lawsuit names Rittenhouse and his parents, Gilah Pomeranz and William Rittenhouse, his brother, Nicholas Rittenhouse, and his grandmother, Evelyn Pomeranz. It claims that some family members knew that Michael Rittenhouse killed Lopez.

Rion, who is representing the Rittenhouse family in the suit, denied that other family members were involved, saying they “have no responsibility for these matters.”

He also said the restitution ruling will have no bearing on the civil case.

Contact: rmihalek@ysnews.com