Assault Suspect Released – Man charged in road rage incident will return to Tennessee
Assault suspect released
Man charged in road rage incident will return to Tennessee
By MEGHAN GILBERT
BLADE STAFF WRITER
The man charged with assaulting former radio personality Troy Neff during a road rage incident was released from jail yesterday and planned to head back to Tennessee until his next court hearing. During a brief appearance in Perrysburg Municipal Court yesterday morning, Jeffrey Hardeman, 42, of Knoxville, Tenn., waived a preliminary hearing and his bond was changed from $75,000 to his own recognizance.
“He’s going to go home with his family today and try to recover from all this,” his attorney, Scott Ciolek, said after the hearing. Mr. Hardeman is charged with felonious assault and tampering with evidence and his case will be bound over to the Wood County grand jury. William Connelly, Jr., a Wood County assistant prosecutor, said the earliest it would present the case would be Jan. 21. The grand jury meets the first and third Wednesday of the month in Wood County. A stipulation was added to Mr. Hardeman’s bond that he not stay in Perrysburg hotels as he travels for his work as a quality control engineer with the glass industry, as they are close toMr. Neff’s financial business, Advanced Retirement Solutions, and where the road rage incident occurred.
The fight, in which Mr. Neff suffered stab wounds to his left shoulder, arm, and hand, happened about 6:15 p.m. Dec. 10 on Holiday Lane in Perrysburg Township.
Since then, the Troy Neff Show on WCWA-AM (1230) was canceled, which Mr. Neff said is because of his noncompliance with the Take Back Toledo campaign. And recently his column was pulled from the Toledo Free Press because he submitted the texts of columns from PPC Inc., which he subscribes to, as his columns for the paper. Mr. Neff admitted doing so and said that when he uses material from PPC in his own newsletter, he adds a disclaimer about the origin of the content. “I’m not a journalist, never held myself out to be, but common sense is I should have mentioned it to [Editor-in-chief] Michael [Miller], and we should have put a disclaimer on it,” he said. Mr. Neff spoke with the media about what happened the day after the road rage incident, but Mr. Hardeman has been in jail since that time and hasn’t shared his side.
His attorney, Scott Ciolek, spoke for him yesterday, saying their stories mostly match up except for who hit whom first. Mr. Neff says that Mr. Hardeman pushed him first and then he tackled Mr. Hardeman in retaliation. Mr. Hardeman contends that Mr. Neff ran at him and tackled him first. Mr. Ciolek said his client is a gentle man with no prior criminal record and used the knife in self defense. Mr. Hardeman traveled to the area to work with GlassTech in Perrysburg and wasn’t familiar with the area when he inadvertently cut off Mr. Neff on Holiday Lane. That was followed by the exchange of words, the men getting out of their vehicles, and the fight.
Mr. Ciolek said his client admits he used the knife in the altercation, but they refute the tampering with evidence claims. According to Mr. Ciolek, Mr. Neff tackled his client so hard that he “defecated himself” and so he threw away his soiled clothing and changed to go to the hospital to get his hand stitched up that was cut during the fight. His other bloody clothing was still in his car, Mr. Ciolek said. And Mr. Hardeman didn’t try to wipe the knife clean, as is alleged, but it might have gotten that way when he cut up a shirt to wrap his bleeding hand, Mr. Ciolek said.
In an e-mail, Mr. Hardeman’s sister Susan Hardeman White, said her brother is a kind and gentle man, and that it must have been self defense for him to take out that knife. “Jeff is a kindhearted person that does not have a violent bone in his body,” she said.
Contact Meghan Gilbert at:
mgilbert@theblade.com
or 419-724-6134.
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