Former bus driver not guilty of assault
8/30/2007FREMONT A former Gibsonburg school district bus driver was found not guilty of assault yesterday in Sandusky County Common Pleas Court.
Jim Lechman, 65, of Fremont had been charged with assault after an incident in which a 13-year-old boy was beaten by two older boys on one of his bus routes back in May, according to a Sandusky County sheriff s department report.
The report stated that on May 9, Mr. Lechman told the boy that the older teenagers would take him to his assigned seat if he did not go there voluntarily. When the 13-year-old did not comply, the other boys went to the back of the bus and punched him several times before Mr. Lechman told them to stop, the report said.
The jury of eight returned the verdict less than 45 minutes after the day-long trial ended at 4:35 p.m. with visiting Judge Donald Z. Petroff on the bench.
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