‘Children of Ohio are safe:’ Sex offender denied parole in Trumbull County
Repeat violent offender and child rapist Martin Petersime has been denied parole until at least May 2027.
Petersime, 70, has now served 32 years in prison, most recently in Grafton Correctional Institution.
“The children of Ohio and elsewhere are safe with this chronic child sexual predator in prison,” said Prosecutor Dennis Watkins.
Petersime had a parole hearing in July 2024, his fifth after being given a 12 -to 40-year sentence on 1992 convictions of 20 separate felony sex offenses involving at least six different minors, including rape, pandering obscenity and sexual materials involving minors, minors in nudity material, corrupting minors, and disseminating sexual material to minors.
“Without a doubt to know Martin Petersime is to know the consummate child sexual predator lurking among us,” Prosecutor Watkins has written in letters to the parole board opposing his release. “From the Petersime criminal history, … (he) has been the ‘Traveling Pedophile’ going from Piqua, Ohio, to Cleveland, Ohio, and to Warren, Ohio.”
Court and police records showed some of Petersime’s young male victims were taking music lessons at his downtown Warren Music Center, while others were hired to clean up or were enticed there with marijuana that Petersime admitted he kept handy for that reason. None of the victims were named during the highly publicized criminal case, except the one who turned in the music teacher on April 28, 1992, by going to the Warren Police Department with a pornographic videotape made at the music store by Petersime trying to entice a child to perform sexual acts while dancing to the rock music of Van Halen.
Even after spending many years in prison and given numerous rehabilitative programs, Petersime was caught by prison officials downloading pornography and committing lewd sexual acts.
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