Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
A man accused of ramming the Wells County sheriff’s police cruiser during an August drug-fueled crime spree is now charged with robbing and raping an Allen County woman the same day.
Formal charges filed Thursday in Allen Superior Court describe Theodore Tobias Schwartz’s Aug. 19 attack on the woman in her home near the Allen-Wells county line. The court documents are the first details to emerge publicly from the random assault that led police to chase Schwartz into Wells County, where he was arrested after a 90-minute crime spree.
Schwartz, 39, of Portland, faces numerous felony counts, including rape, criminal deviate conduct, burglary, robbery, criminal confinement, battery, auto theft and drug charges. Those allegations are on top of at least seven more charges from Wells and Adams counties.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Schwartz ambushed the woman in her basement as she was returning home from work. She had never seen him before, the affidavit said.
Before raping her, according to court documents, he bashed her head through the glass in her garage door and strangled her when she tried to fight back. He tied a bandanna around her mouth to keep her from screaming and tried to bind her hands behind her back, documents said.
Schwartz’s assault ended when police arrived, according to the affidavit. He jumped from a second-floor bathroom window in the home and stole his victim’s car, leaving behind a stolen vehicle he had arrived in, documents said.
After he fled into Wells County, police said Schwartz broke into one home, tried to break into another, stole a minivan and robbed a grocery store in Ossian. He then rammed the Wells County sheriff’s squad car and fled into a corn field, police said.
When police arrested him, he told officers he was taking methamphetamine and opiates and then had a seizure.
Schwartz was taken to Bluffton Regional Medical Center, where detectives interviewed him. He admitted to raping the woman and assaulting her, according to a probable cause affidavit.
He has been in the Wells County Jail since his arrest.
Schwartz arrived at the Allen County woman’s home in a car that was stolen from Fort Recovery, Ohio, court documents said. When police searched the vehicle, they found remnants of a meth lab, the drug itself and also controlled substances, documents said.
