Judge Robert Peeler Convicts Erica Grove of Molesting a Five-Year-Old and Acquits Her of Rape as Tony McCollister’s Trial Nears

Judge Robert Peeler did not give Warren County the verdict either side walked into the courtroom hoping to hear. On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, he convicted Erica Lynne Grove of two counts of gross sexual imposition and two counts of endangering children, and he acquitted her of four counts of rape, of corrupting another with drugs, and of three other gross sexual imposition counts. WLWT and FOX19 both counted it the same way: guilty on four of the twelve charges still in front of him, not guilty on eight. Grove, 43, a registered nurse, remains in the custody of the Warren County sheriff. Sentencing is not immediate. Her former partner, Tony McCollister, is scheduled to start his own bench trial before the same judge on Monday, September 28. Anyone who believes a child is in danger can call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-CHILD.

That split is the story, and it is easy to flatten. A conviction for molesting a child under six is not an acquittal wearing a technical name. An acquittal on rape is not a certificate that the messages were harmless. Peeler said the state failed to prove the rape counts, the drug count, and three of the imposition counts beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the evidence outside a pile of text messages was not enough. The defense had spent the trial calling those messages fantasy and role-play. The judge’s answer, reported by WCPO, was that the conversations were repulsive and that a civilized society does not punish thoughts alone. He then convicted her of acts, not thoughts, on the counts he said the evidence carried.

How a Google tip became two trials

The file opened on a June 2025 tip from Google to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Warren County deputies tied an IP address to McCollister, a former cast member of the canceled A&E series “Neighbors with Benefits.” Prosecutors say the search found illegal images of minors and video of sexual conduct with two dogs. The December 23, 2025, arrest was two counts. A grand jury later charged McCollister with rape, gross sexual imposition, endangering children, corrupting another with drugs, pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor, and sexual conduct with an animal. Grove drew her own 24-count indictment. Prosecutor David Fornshell has alleged the pair drugged a child under six. Those charging papers were allegations until a judge finished a trial. Grove’s trial is now finished. McCollister’s is not.

Both pleaded not guilty on February 4, 2026. Judge Peeler set bond at $250,000 each and barred contact with children or animals if they posted it. Prosecutors had asked for $1 million. Grove’s then-attorney said McCollister coerced her and that graphic texts were appeasement. In early March, WLWT reported that McCollister switched his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, a defense that asks whether a severe mental disease left him unable to know the wrongfulness of the acts. An insanity plea is not a finding. “Neighbors with Benefits” lasted two episodes in 2015 before viewer blowback killed it. That tape is why national outlets still use his name in a chyron. It is not why a warrant exists.

The plea that narrowed the bench trial

On August 24, before opening statements, Grove pleaded guilty to counts 21 through 24, four second-degree misdemeanors of sexual conduct with an animal. Each can carry up to 90 days and a $750 fine. Eight counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material were dismissed. She then waived a jury on what remained: four rape counts, five gross sexual imposition counts, one count of corrupting another with drugs, and two counts of endangering children. A bench trial is not a secret trial. It is a trial in which the judge is the finder of fact. Peeler heard a therapist, a toxicologist, and the lead detective. Neither defendant took the stand in Grove’s case. Closing arguments landed in late August. Peeler said he needed time to read thousands of messages and that a verdict could take up to 30 days. He used most of that window.

During trial he had already pressed the state. When the defense asked for an acquittal, he asked what evidence existed beyond the texts and said he was extremely skeptical that the messages had been proved true. He denied the mid-trial acquittal and kept the counts. The September 23 split is the written answer to that skepticism. He was willing to convict where he found corroboration. He was not willing to treat a chat log, by itself, as proof of rape or of drugging. People and local desks had spent the spring on the insanity plea and the A&E credit. The judgment that matters is narrower and harsher than a cable recap: a woman who admitted the animal counts is now also convicted of sexual imposition and child endangerment against a five-year-old, and she is not convicted of rape.

What Marci’s Law delays, and what Monday does not

WCPO reported that under Marci’s Law, sentencing cannot proceed at once. Peeler said he does not need a pre-sentence investigation on the child counts because he has already heard the evidence. Grove was still due for a pre-sentence interview on Thursday, September 24, on the animal-sex counts she had already admitted. Neighbors who wore pink for the child told local reporters they were relieved she would not be walking the neighborhood. Grove’s family was in the courtroom in pink as well. None of that is a sentence. A sentence is a journal entry with days, months, or years on it. That entry is still ahead.

McCollister’s bench trial is the next record about the same household, the same devices, and the same alleged victim. He still has the insanity plea on the table. If he goes forward, Peeler will hear a second set of facts rather than inherit Grove’s verdict as his. A co-defendant’s conviction is not proof against the person who has not been tried. A co-defendant’s acquittal on rape is not a gift he can spend. Ohio still has to prove his counts, or his doctors have to meet the insanity test, or both. The AEGIS Alliance will not write a conviction a clerk has not entered. Related files on this desk include the David Kellett case in Powell, Wyoming and the Snohomish County Operation Guardian sweep.

The television credit is still getting in the way

Cable producers love a defendant who already has tape. McCollister has tape. The two-episode A&E experiment tells a national audience that a man once performed a lifestyle on purpose. It does not tell that audience which counts a judge believed. Mixing those questions is how a local felony file becomes a freak-show item and how the child disappears from the frame. The slower version is the one Peeler actually produced. A tech tip. Two defendants. A nurse who admitted animal counts, was convicted of molesting and endangering a child, and was acquitted of rape. A former cast member who says he was insane if he did what the state describes, and who has not yet been judged. A child whose name does not belong in a headline.

The AEGIS Alliance will update this file when Peeler sentences Grove and when McCollister’s trial produces findings. Until then the animal-sex misdemeanors are admissions, the imposition and endangerment counts are convictions, the rape counts against Grove are acquittals, and the most serious accusations against McCollister remain allegations in front of a judge who has already shown he will throw out what the texts do not prove. Readers who want the broader pattern can start with The AEGIS Alliance crime news file and the U.S. news desk, and stay with the journal entries rather than the rerun.