CINCINNATI - The company moved. The website is dead. The case is delayed. The lawyers aren’t talking.
That brings you up to date on thefentanyl-smuggling case against Grace Bosworth, a small business owner from Norwood who was arrested on federal drug charges in June.
Bosworth’s 10-employee company, Global 2 Local Language Solutions, ended its month-to-month lease at Hamilton County Business Center July 31.
“She was current” on her rent, said Patrick Longo, director of the county-run business incubator. “We agreed this was not a good situation and not good for the building or the other occupants.”
The company’s website no longer operates. Instead, it transfers visitors to a new translation-services company, Great Lakes Translation and Interpreting, in Hyde Park. Great Lakes has the same telephone number that Bosworth provided as her contact number in court records. State records show the Santen & Hughes law firm filed incorporation papers in August for Great Lakes Interpreting and Translation Agency LLC.
When WCPO called Great Lakes and asked for Bosworth, the woman who answered said we had the wrong number.
Bosworth's defense attorney, Louis Sirkin, is a Santen & Hughes partner. He did not return WCPO's email. Federal prosecutors declined to comment.
Bosworth was placed under home detention and must submit to weekly drug tests as a condition of her release, ordered July 14 by U.S. Magistrate Thomas Parker in Cleveland.
Bosworth and co-defendant James Halpin were initially named in a criminal complaint in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio, but the case was quickly transferred to the Northeast Ohio District. Halpin's attorney, a public defender in Cleveland, did not return WCPO's call.
Booking photos of Bosworth and Halpin
As WCPO previously reported, an affidavit in support of the charges said Bosworth and Halpin were arrested after an undercover agent purchased 100 milligrams of fentanyl from “a website on the dark web.” The May 30 purchase led U.S. Postal inspectors to their Cincinnati address. Halpin told investigators that both were daily users of fentanyl, according to the affidavit.
“Halpin admitted to mailing approximately 30 to 35 parcels that contained 50-100mg quantities of fentanyl each,” said the affidavit. “Halpin advised the parcels were packaged by Grace Bosworth and then he was sent to the post office to mail the drug parcels to customers.”
On Oct. 5, Halpin and Bosworth waived their right of speedy trial to “fully explore pre-indictment negotiations with the government,” court records state.
Halpin filed a motion Nov. 1, seeking permission to file under seal a motion that could modify the terms of his release. The motion said Halpin wants to include documents with “sensitive information that should not be disclosed to the public.”
