LEBANON — Warren County has spent more $100,000 prosecuting Ryan Widmer three times for drowning his wife in the bathtub of their Hamilton Twp. home almost three years ago.

So far, the county has spent $41,139 for expert witnesses, travel and lodging expenses for mystery witness Jennifer Crew, among other costs in the third Widmer trial, According to the county Prosecutor’s Office.

The tally does not include the $11,000 Common Pleas Judge Neal Bronson approved for two defense experts, Dr. Chandler Phillips and Dr. Michael Balko. An order issued by Bronson last week, noted that Balko sent a bill for $8,614. However Bronson only approved $6,500, the original amount requested. Since Widmer was declared as being indigent, the county will be picking up the costs to prepare trial transcript for his appeal.

The first two trials cost taxpayers $51,924, the Prosecutor’s Office said. The first cost $22,214 and the second $29,710. These costs do not include time spent by staff who worked on the case.

Jill and Gary Widmer have spent more than $440,000 defending their son.

No appellate team has been named yet for Widmer, who wants his murder conviction overturned.

Widmer’s attorney Lindsey Gutierrez served notice last Wednesday that an appeal of his conviction in Warren County Common Pleas Court will be filed in the 12th District Court of Appeals.

She said it would take about a month to prepare the transcript of the three-week trial which is expected to exceed 3,000 pages.

An additional two months will be needed by the appellate team to prepare its brief, Gutierrez said.

Widmer, 30, was convicted Feb. 15 of murdering his wife, Edgewood High School graduate Sarah Widmer, in August 2008 at their Hamilton Twp. home. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Bronson denied Widmer’s appeal for a new trial or acquittal on March 25.

Mark Godsey of the Ohio Innocence Project, appellate attorney Pierre Bergeron and attorney Michele Berry represented Widmer when the state appealed Bronson’s decision to grant a second trial. Godsey said he could not talk about the possibility of representing Widmer again on appeal.

Gutierrez said she was told Godsey and Berry were planning to visit Widmer to discuss the appeal.

Widmer is currently at the Corrections Reception Center in Orient.

Widmer has been tried three times for the drowning death of his wife. He was found guilty in the first trial, but granted a new trial when jury misconduct was found. The second trial ended with a hung jury.

Defense attorneys argued Widmer deserves a fourth trial because they alleged one juror, named D.E. in court documents, disobeyed Bronson’s repeated warnings to not discuss the case and stay off all forms of media.

The defense claimed the juror told someone, “Don’t worry about the Widmer case, we have all talked about it and we know he is guilty. He is going to burn in hell.”

The defense also has said Widmer should be acquitted because evidence in the trial did not back a guilty verdict.

“The bottom line is that reasonable and rational jurors, when construing the evidence in a light most favorable to the state, could find that the state proved the elements of murder beyond a reasonable doubt,” Bronson wrote in his response to the motions for acquittal or new trial.

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.