A Marion County Common Pleas Court judge dismissed the charges against Heidi Ratliff on Monday, October 19, granting a defense motion for a judgment of acquittal after finding the prosecution’s evidence legally insufficient to support a conviction.
Ratliff had faced charges including child endangerment and obstructing justice. Her defense presented the motion early Monday under Ohio Criminal Rule 29, which asks a court to dismiss one or more charges when the evidence presented by the prosecution is insufficient as a matter of law to support a conviction.
Visiting Judge Daniel Hogan, a retired Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge, agreed with the defense and dismissed the charges. The ruling ends the case against Ratliff in Marion County Common Pleas Court.
The outcome follows a similar ruling in the related case against her husband. Ayer’s Ratliff was acquitted in January under the same Rule 29 standard, a result the court reached after the prosecution presented its evidence in his case as well.
The case dates to August 2025, when Marion County Prosecutor Ray Grogan announced the prosecution publicly in a post on the prosecutor’s office Facebook page, saying the public wanted to know more about the case. The charges drew sustained local attention in Marion in the months that followed.
A Rule 29 judgment is not a jury verdict. It is a ruling by the judge that, even viewing the prosecution’s evidence in the light most favorable to the state, no reasonable fact-finder could convict on the charges as presented, so the case does not go forward.
Marion County Now reported Monday that it had reached out to both parties for comment as the story developed. No additional court proceedings in the dismissed case were announced Monday, and the dismissal closes a prosecution that began more than a year ago.