A Deerfield Township man accused of sexually assaulting children had his bond set at $300,000 Thursday.John "Ben" Reynolds, 53, is charged with one count of rape and one count of gross sexual imposition. Detectives with the Warren County Sheriff's Office said they've identified three victims who were known to Reynolds.According to court documents obtained by WLWT, the children are currently between 13 and 14 years old. Two are girls and one is a boy. Documents state the sexual assaults started in 2016 and took place at multiple locations including Liberty Center, the KOA campground in Lebanon, a local YMCA and Reynolds' home.The children told social workers who interviewed them that Reynolds would buy them items such as jewelry, clothes, stuffed animals, toys and candy, according to court documents.The investigation into the assaults began after the mother of a child reported Reynolds to Butler County Children Services in April.During Reynolds' arraignment Thursday, his attorney, Edward Perry, said his client was a family man."He is married, judge. He's been married for 29 years, and he's got three grown children," Perry said. Perry said his client moved to Warren County after graduating from Southern Illinois University in 1992."He came to Warren County and made Warren County his home, and he's been here ever since. He was married here. He purchased and bought a home in Mason, Ohio. Him, his wife and his family have been in that house in Mason for the last 22 years," Perry said.Perry said Reynolds has been employed as a software developer, most recently by the Cincinnati Financial Corporation."He suspects that, because of his arrest, that job is no longer available to him," Perry said. Detectives said Reynolds was involved with a Boy Scout troop out of Mason, but they say the children are not associated with the scouts.Reynolds is scheduled to be back in Lebanon Municipal Court on June 2 for a preliminary hearing.

A court appearance was postponed Tuesday for a Donald Trump valet who's charged with helping the former president hide classified documents that the Justice Department wanted back.A lawyer for the valet, Walt Nauta, told a judge that Nauta had been unable to find a Florida-based attorney and that he was stuck in Newark, New Jersey, and unable to fly down for the arraignment because of a flight that sat for hours on the tarmac before being canceled.The lawyer, Stanley Woodward, said Nauta expressed his apologies to the court for not being present.“Mr. Nauta takes very seriously the charges that he is facing,” he said.As a result, a judge pushed Tuesday's scheduled arraignment back until July 6.Nauta was charged earlier this month alongside Trump in a 38-count indictment filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. Trump, a Republican, pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 37 counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Nauta's arraignment was postponed to give him time to find a Florida-based lawyer.The indictment accuses Nauta of conspiring with Trump to conceal records that he had taken with him from the White House after this term ended in January 2021.Video below: Audio of Trump's 2021 conversation about classified documentsProsecutors allege that Nauta, at the former president's direction, moved boxes of documents bearing classification markings so that they would not be found by a Trump lawyer who was tasked with searching the home for classified records to be returned to the government. That, prosecutors said, resulted in a false representation to the Justice Department that a “diligent search” for classified documents had been done and that all documents responsive to a subpoena had been returned.Nauta is a Navy veteran who fetched Trump’s Diet Cokes as his valet at the White House before joining him as a personal aide at Mar-a-Lago. He is regularly by Trump's side, even traveling in Trump's motorcade to the Miami courthouse for their appearance earlier this month and accompanying him afterwards to a stop at the city's famed Cuban restaurant Versailles, where he helped usher supporters eager to take selfies with the former president.Meanwhile, on Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied a Justice Department request to file under seal the names of 84 potential witnesses it wants Trump to be ordered to have no contact with as the case moves forward. She said that, in her view, the Justice Department did not explain why it needed to file the list with the court or why it was necessary to seal the list from public view.She also scheduled a pretrial conference for July 14 to discuss matters related to the Classified Information Protection Act.And last week, the Justice Department proposed a Dec. 11 trial date for Trump, requesting a postponement from a judge's initial date in August.___Tucker reported from Washington.

Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, arrived at a courthouse on Friday morning to face charges that he attempted to extort money from the missing teen’s mother.Van der Sloot was extradited to the United States on Thursday from Peru, where he is serving a 28-year prison sentence after confessing to killing a Peruvian woman. He will be arraigned before a federal judge in Birmingham, not far from the suburb where Holloway grew up, in his first court appearance in the case.Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, is expected to attend, a representative said.“For 18 years, I have lived with the unbearable pain of Natalee’s loss," she said in a statement Thursday. "Each day has been filled with unanswered questions and a longing for justice that has eluded us at every turn. But today ... I am hopeful that some small semblance of justice may finally be realized.”Van der Sloot is charged with one count each of extortion and wire fraud — the only charges to have ever linked the Dutch citizen to Holloway’s disappearance on the Caribbean island of Aruba. He was handed over to the U.S. roughly a month after both countries agreed on his extradition.Natalee Holloway, 18, was on a high school graduation trip with classmates in Aruba when she vanished in 2005. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who was a student at an international school on the island. Van der Sloot was identified as a main suspect and detained weeks later for questioning, along with two Surinamese brothers, but no charges were filed in the case.Video below: Joran van der Sloot arrives at federal courthouse FridayA judge declared Holloway dead, but her body has never been found.U.S. prosecutors said that in 2010, van der Sloot reached out to Beth Holloway, seeking $250,000 to disclose the location of the young woman’s body. A grand jury indicted him that year.Holloway’s mysterious disappearance sparked years of news coverage and countless true-crime podcasts.In 2012, van der Sloot pleaded guilty in Peru to killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a prominent Peruvian family. She was killed in 2010 five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance.Van der Sloot married a Peruvian woman in July 2014 in a ceremony at a maximum-security prison. He was shuffled between Peruvian prisons in response to reports that he enjoyed privileges such as television, internet access and a cellphone, and accusations that he had threatened to kill a warden. A 2001 treaty between Peru and the U.S. allows a suspect to be temporarily extradited to face trial in the other country. Van der Sloot’s attorney, Máximo Altez, initially indicated his client would not challenge his extradition but that changed Monday when he filed a writ of habeas corpus. A judge ruled against van der Sloot the following day.Peru has agreed to let van der Sloot remain in U.S. custody until the Alabama case, including any appeal if he is convicted, is concluded, according to a resolution published in Peru’s federal register. U.S. authorities agree to return van der Sloot to Peru's custody after that, the resolution states.

Live updates on former President Donald Trump's expected surrender on charges stemming from 2016 hush money payments.Video above: Trump deplanes in NY ahead of court dateWhat to know:Prosecutor has arrived at courthouseLawyer says Trump will maintain innocence in courtPolice brace for protests in Trump's hometown ‘RALLY FOR TRUMP’People began gathering Tuesday morning for a “Rally for Trump” in a park outside the courthouse where the former president is scheduled to be arraigned.The rally with Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was scheduled to start midmorning, several hours ahead of Donald Trump’s court appearance.Trump supporters also are expected expected to gather at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Tuesday night as he returns. PROSECUTOR ARRIVESManhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrived at court Tuesday morning in New York ahead of former President Donald Trump's arraignment.Bragg became Manhattan’s first Black district attorney in 2022, following his election the previous November. He inherited a years-long grand jury investigation into hush money paid on Trump’s behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign.After taking office, Bragg slowed his office’s move toward an indictment of Trump and said he had concerns about the strength of the case. That sparked a public protest by two prosecutors who were leading the investigation and resigned.But Bragg convened a new grand jury this year after convicting Trump’s family company for tax fraud. He called that result a “strong demarcation line” for proceeding with other parts of the probe.___TRUMP ATTORNEY: ‘NO GUILTY PLEA'Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said the former president's appearance in court for Tuesday’s arraignment would be brief because the processing “does not take long.”“It won’t be a long day in court,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”"We know the basis of the indictment and the factual allegations in the indictment,” Tacopina said, adding Trump would maintain his innocence.“One thing I can assure you as I sit here today, there’ll be no guilty plea in this case. That’s one thing I can guarantee you,” he said.Tacopina appeared to predict the case would ultimately be dismissed.“I don’t think this case is going to see a juror,” he said. “I think there’s a legal challenge that will be made and should be made successfully.” Video above: Get the Facts: What is a grand jury and how does it work?___SPECTATORS LINE UPSpectators, many of them members of the news media, lined up overnight to get a seat inside the courtroom, or even just a glimpse of Trump, who wasn’t expected until Tuesday afternoon.The building was surrounded by barricades, and people were undergoing layers of security checks. The reporters waiting in line were camped out under tents with lawn chairs, blankets and pizza boxes.The nation’s 45th commander in chief was expected to be escorted from New York City’s Trump Tower — also surrounded by barricades — into a lower Manhattan courthouse by the Secret Service.Police braced for protests from supporters of Trump, a Republican who is running for the White House again in 2024. He called the decision by a grand jury to indict him “political persecution and election interference at the highest level.”Prosecutors investigated money paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep the women from going public with claims that they had sex with him.Video above: NYC says its ready for unprecedented arraignment of former president Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump came to a New York City courtroom Tuesday for his arraignment on charges related to falsifying business records in a hush money investigation, the first president ever to be charged with a crime.The Republican former president, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly assailed the investigation, has called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024. Trump's lawyers have said the former president “did not commit any crime” and they will "vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”What to expect:What's the plan?Trump flew into New York from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday and traveled by motorcade to the Manhattan courthouse from Trump Tower on Tuesday to face a judge for his afternoon arraignment.Will there be a 'perp walk'?No. So-called perp walks happen when a criminal suspect is taken in handcuffs out of a police precinct and then driven to the courthouse. But Trump won't be going to a police precinct. He's arranged a surrender with the district attorney's office and will head straight to the court, skipping a police station entirely. It's very unlikely anyone will get a glimpse of him going into or out of court, unless he wants to be seen. That's because there are underground entrances, side doors and tunnels in and around the Manhattan courthouse.What happens after the surrender?Trump will get booked. Here's what that means: Before computers, information on every criminal suspect would be written down in a big book kept by court officials. Now, it's all computerized, but the process is largely the same. Court officers will take down Trump's full name, age, birthdate, height and weight. They'll check to see if the former president has any outstanding warrants. They'll take his fingerprints — but they won't roll his fingertips in ink; these days that's done by computer, too. Officers will roll each fingertip on a computerized system that records the prints. They may take his photo, known as a mug shot. In New York, this process usually takes about two hours, but can be as long as four. But no one else is getting processed when Trump arrives, so it will go much faster. Then he goes before a judge.What happens in the hearing?An arraignment is a hearing in which the indictment will be formally unsealed and the charges will be read aloud, though Trump could request to waive the public reading. He will be asked how he pleads to the charges and is expected to answer “not guilty.” And Trump’s attorneys Joe Tacopina, Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche, will work with the judge and the district attorney’s office to set a date for the next time he’d be back in court. The judge has ruled that news photographers would be allowed to take photos of the former president at the start of his arraignment.Will he be arrested?Technically, yes. When he's fingerprinted and processed, he's considered under arrest and in custody. But it won't look like what it does in the movies or on TV's “Law & Order.” He won't be handcuffed and he won't sit in a jail cell, in part because parts of the courthouse will be cleared out for his arraignment — and because Trump is a former president with Secret Service protection. Not all defendants are handcuffed before they appear before a judge for an arraignment, though some are.If there is a mug shot, will it be made public?It depends. In New York City, mug shots aren't generally made public. They are taken by the law enforcement agency that makes the arrest. There are situations where a judge could make the photo public in response to a public records fight. It could also get leaked, too.What else is happening at the courthouse on Tuesday?Court officials are trying to limit what business is happening at the courthouse at 100 Centre St. in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday. Police are expected to close some streets around the plaza and security will be tight. The New York Police Department is in charge of security in the city, but state court officers are in charge of security inside the court.Video below: Crowds outside of NY courthouse ahead of Trump arraignmentWill Trump walk out of there?In all likelihood, yes. New York’s bail laws have been overhauled over the past few years, meaning Trump would be released without bail because the anticipated charges against him don't require that bail be set. But it's possible that Judge Juan Merchan could decide that Trump is a flight risk and order him held in custody, with or without bail. Trump's lawyers would argue that the former president's ties to the U.S. are strong, and because he's a presidential candidate, he has no reason to flee and should be allowed to leave.What happens next?The judge and legal teams will set dates for the next hearing and deadlines for discovery, in which the district attorney’s office must turn over all its information to Trump’s lawyers, and motions, which include any requests to shift the venue or dismiss the case outright. That process usually takes months. Tacopina has said he needs to read the indictment first and research before he decides what to do on a change of venue or any motions to dismiss, though it would be very common to file one.