City hires new prosecutor

0

Amelia Bean-DeFlumer has been appointed prosecutor for the City of Delaware.

Bean-DeFlumer served as the acting prosecutor for the city for five months after Natalia Harris left the position in 2019 to become the city attorney for Delaware. Bean-DeFlumer has been with the office since 2018, and she prosecuted felony cases for the Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office for five years before moving to the city’s prosecutor’s office.

“I am excited for the opportunity to continue to lead the prosecutor’s office,” Bean-DeFlumer said. “The work of the office continues, and the job of the courts is to be open when we are in these kinds of crisis and difficult periods.”

As the prosecutor for Delaware, Bean-DeFlumer will prosecute misdemeanor criminal and traffic offenses that occur in Delaware County. The city reports approximately 20,000 cases are filed in the court annually.

Bean-DeFlumer said Friday that her history with Delaware extends all the way back to when she was studying law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

“One class offered there is the Prosecution Clinic, which allows students to come to the Delaware Municipal Court and prosecute cases,” Bean-DeFlumer said. “I took the clinic and had the opportunity to prosecute cases here. I had my first trial in front of (now retired) Judge (David) Sunderman. During that experience, I found that I really liked the feel of Delaware.”

Bean-DeFlumer said that when she was looking for jobs after school she thought Delaware would be a natural place to look.

“I was already somewhat familiar with it, and I lived about half an hour south, so it was an easy commute,” Bean-DeFlumer said. “I knew the downtown was growing and liked the fact that I could go for walks at lunch. I was hired by Carol O’Brien as an assistant prosecutor with the Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office and fell even more in love with Delaware. I soon bought my first house here and never left. Moving to the city prosecutor’s office was a natural transition and almost a return to my roots as a student in the clinic.”

Bean-DeFlumer said there has been a lot of change in the office since she arrived in 2018, including the changes made because of the pandemic.

“Being city prosecutor gives me the opportunity to use my experience with the office to lead us through these changes and provide some stability in an office that has been in flux for over a year,” Bean-DeFlumer said.

Modernizing the office and making it more efficient is on the top of the list for Bean-DeFlumer in 2021.

“The biggest goal at this point is to transition the office to more digital processes,” she said. “Over the past several years, there has been an increase in the amount of digital evidence we receive, and the office has had to adapt to that. We need to develop more efficient processes for receiving and storing digital evidence so that the office is prepared for technological advances in the future.”

City Attorney Natalia Harris said she’s “thrilled” to have Bean-DeFlumer lead the prosecutor’s office and said “she brings a strong, steady, community-minded approach to enforcement.”

City Prosecutor Amelia Bean-DeFlumer is pictured inside the courtroom at the Delaware Municipal Court.
https://www.delgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2021/01/web1_New-prosecutor.jpgCity Prosecutor Amelia Bean-DeFlumer is pictured inside the courtroom at the Delaware Municipal Court. Courtesy photo | City of Delaware

By Glenn Battishill

[email protected]

Glenn Battishill can be reached at 740-413-0903 or on Twitter @BattishillDG.

No posts to display